Northern lights on New Year's Eve in Poland. When and where to see the Northern Lights? Northern lights – what is it?

As Adam Hurcewicz from the blog “O cosmos i astronautyce” reported on Tuesday evening, favorable aurora conditions occurred at 9 p.m. “Whoever has a clear sky should catch the aurora borealis over the northern horizon,” he said.

According to the forecast for New Year's Eve the best conditions for observing the phenomenon are in southern Polandwhere clear weather is expected at night. The further north, the more clouds there will be – it may also rain there. Strong gusts of wind will also pose a threat in the north.

Extremely high activity has been observed on the Sun in recent days. As the popularizer of astronomy Karol Wójcicki reported, “several groups of sunspots periodically generated M-class flares and several X-class flares”, and at a similar time, after several such strong flares, two coronal mass ejections occurred.

These are huge clouds of highly magnetized plasma, ejected at high speed into interplanetary space and touching the Earth's magnetosphere. They are expected to reach Earth on the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

“A magnetic storm with a strength of G2-G3 is forecast. This opens the opportunity to observe the aurora borealis from all over Poland next night,” announces Wójcicki, author of the “With your head in the stars” profile on social media.

The aurora borealis is a light phenomenon that occurs when energized gas particles sent by the Sun hit the Earth's upper atmosphere at high speeds (up to 72 million kilometers per hour). The planet is protected from “attack” by its magnetic field. It redirects particles towards the north and south poles, and the particles interact with gases in our atmosphere.

The aurora occurs mainly in the region of the North and South Poles. Scientific name aurora borealis this aurora borealis (near the North Pole) i aurora australis (near the South Pole). It comes from the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora.

The last time colorful lights dancing in the sky were clearly visible in Poland was in October.