Auroras in Mexico, England, Chile, Germany, Argentina and more.

Auroras from the mountains of Madrid Souce

The Aurora was seen in a lot of countries where it is rare to see them so intense or, like in Mexico, they are never seen, the reaction of many was disbelief and I don't blame them, probably many people thought they were dreaming, how is it possible that these lights of colors dance in the sky, this kind of collective hallucination, what they put in the water.

It is not a hallucination, it is something as real as the sun and the earth, in fact, it is evidence of the delicate balance between the forces of our star against those of our planet that allows us to exist; Without the sun, our star, we would not be here, we would not be able to survive, all the energy that reaches Earth and that we use comes from the Sun, if all the forms of energy that we use.

Aurora in Mexico Souce

The sun has its own magnetic field and is super chaotic, the heat from the core rises to the surface where space is radiated and that material, which is mainly hydrogen and helium, loses temperature in the form of radiation and cools a little and sinks again. to be heated again when it approaches the core, this is called convection and is what happens when you heat some liquid on the stove.

The liquid that is at the bottom of the container when heated becomes less dense than the liquid that is above and moves upwards, there it loses heat and when it cools it becomes more dense sinking to the bottom again to heat up again, this creates Currents that move in circles are called convective currents.

Well, all that movement in that part of the sun that is precisely called the convection zone creates a lot of friction between the gas currents and that creates electrical charges in the gas that form magnetic fields, in the animation above the created magnetic fields are simulated Because of those electrical charges like loops or donuts that are continually interacting with each other, sometimes one of those magnetic fields is detached from the sun and sent into space, usually it happens in these areas with sunspots that are called active regions.

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When the magnetic field is released from the sun, it brings a lot of matter, billions of tons of plasma, particles such as protons and electrons that go on board that magnetic field that shoots into space at very high speeds, this is called ejection. of coronal mass or EMC for friends, the slowest travel at 200 km per second and the fastest at 3,000 km per second, many times they come just after a flash of electromagnetic radiation that we call an eruption or solar flare.

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And then a magnetic field is released sending a coronal mass ejection towards the earth, in fact the active region number AR 3664 that was responsible for the auroras of May 10, but not all coronal mass ejections affect the Earth, the sun has cycles that last 11 years. At this moment it is at solar maximum, which is the moment of greatest activity in its cycle.

During solar minimum the sun produces on average a single coronal mass ejection every 5 days, it is little and can be sent in any direction, it is very unlikely that we will get one during a solar minimum, but at solar maximum the sun produces three coronal mass ejections per day so it is only a matter of time, in fact in April the warning had already been given that it was going to be our turn and it was our turn.

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When the coronal mass ejection approaches, we call it a geomagnetic storm. Its magnetic field hits the Earth's magnetosphere and its field lines combine, deflecting the plasma and channeling it. In the upper part of the atmosphere there is atomic oxygen, when one of these atoms of oxygen is hit by some electron or proton from the geomagnetic storm the oxygen atom is ionized and remains in the excited state and two things can happen there the oxygen atom in the excited state needs to return to its ground state and can do so After 7 tenths of second by emitting a photon of green light or after 2 seconds by emitting a photon of red light.

A strong solar storm like the one that just happened can overload power lines and damage transformers causing blackouts especially in places near the poles which was the case in Finland and South Africa during this storm and can also break down satellites, although in this event not damage was reported.

Let's hope that it doesn't hit us too hard, and it will just be a beautiful spectacle.

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