The largest solar storm The sky “lit up” in dazzling colors last night in parts of Latin America, including Mexico, which has been caused by solar explosions for the past two decades.
Shades of pink and purple lit up the night sky in Mexicali, a desert city thousands of miles from the Arctic in northern Mexico, where the northern lights are often seen.
The civil defense service of Baja California, Mexico, said more northern lights could be seen Saturday evening.
Local media and social media users in Chile, where the aurora borealis is known as the “south pole” or “southern lights,” posted photos of the sky above the city of Punta Arenas filled with red and fuchsia hues.
Argentina’s local media reported similar colors in the sky in the Patagonian city of Ushuaia.
This phenomenon is expected to continue until the end of the week.
“We are almost certain that charged solar particles from the Sun’s corona are heading towards Earth,” he said at a press conference yesterday. Sean Dahlof the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).
The Center has issued a geomagnetic warning Category 4 storm (on a five-point scale), has not happened since 2005.
The Sun is currently near the peak of its 11-year cycle.
These coronal mass ejections, at least seven of which are aimed at Earth, originate from a sunspot about 16 times the diameter of Earth.
They move at a speed of several hundred kilometres per second.