Piedmontese (and not only) with their noses turned upwards in these minutes to admire the incredible sight in our skydue to one solar storm. A northern Lights that is dyeing the sky with shades ranging from pink to purple to fiery red and which is quickly transferring from our skies to our screens, given that the photos are invading social media. Photos taken not only in Piedmont but throughout Italy, because the Northern Lights are visible up to the south and also in other European countries.
But what caused this incredible show? The Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado had predicted the imminent arrival of “a coronal mass ejection (in jargon, Cme), which will hit the Earth’s magnetic field between May 10th and 11th. This event could trigger a geomagnetic stormclass G2, which could intensify to class G3 if a further ‘Cme’ were to reach Earth in the same period.” “Translated” from scientific language this means that the sun “shoots” towards the Earth a stream of particles interacting with our magnetic field, ending up causing a play of lights that becomes more and more visible the more intense the flow of particles. In this case, we are faced with a solar storm so intense that the aurora is visible even at unusual latitudes just like ours.
Here are some of the photos arriving from Piedmont and Italy:
