A NASA Earth-orbiting satellite caught an incredible view of the May 2024 aurora from space, seen stretching from Billings, Montana, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, all the way to Chicago.
Many of us will remember where we were on the weekend of 10/11 May 2024, when an amazing display of the Northern Lights - aurora borealis - was seen across the world.
The dazzling aurora was seen even at southerly latitudes, where normally aurora would rarely be seen.
The cause of the display was the strongest geomagnetic storm in over two decades.
As the Sun's activity ramps up and approaches the peak of the solar cycle, solar observatories and amateur solar observers alike are seeing more phenomena on the Sun in the shape of sunspots, coronal mass ejections and solar flares.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory - which orbits Earth and captures images of our host star - caught an amazing display of solar flares in the run-up to the 10 May Northern Lights display.
Capturing the aurora from space
The Suomi NPP satellite captured the above image of the aurora over the USA at 08:20 UTC on 11 May 2024 using its VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite).
VIIRS detects nighttime light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared.
Its filters are used to pick out phenomena like city lights, reflected moonlight and, in this case, the aurora.
The satellite's view shows the aurora as a white, cloud-like structure stretching across Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan.
However, the aurora isn't static, but a moving, changing phenomenon, and a variety of coverage and patterns would have been seen over different areas throughout the display.
This image is presented in greyscale, but of course viewers on the ground saw the usual greens, reds and purples of a typical aurora display.
As Solar Cycle 25 approaches its peak, here's to more aurora displays and, hopefully, more amazing images of the aurora from space.
