Satellite image of the Northern Lights taken on May 11, 2024 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite at the Suomi Nuclear Power Plant.
Space explorers and sky observers were rewarded with a breathtaking spectacle of the Northern Lights.
In May 2024, the strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years occurred, creating stunning auroras around the world. Captured by satellite and ground photographers, these events provided important data for scientific studies and marked a significant period of increased solar activity.
In May 2024, the strongest geomagnetic storm in over two decades surprised scientists and skywatchers alike. The Category G5 storm culminated in a remarkable aurora that was visible from many locations around the world on the night of May 10-11, including at latitudes where aurorae are rarely seen.
The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP satellite acquired this image of the aurora on May 11, 2024, at 3:20 a.m. Central Time (8:20 a.m. Universal Time). VIIRS’s day-night band detects nighttime light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, reflected moonlight, and auroras.
> See photos: Stunning auroras light up the night during epic geomagnetic storm
In this view, the Northern Lights appear as a bright white streak over parts of Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. However, auroras are dynamic, and at other times of the night, different areas and patterns of light would have been visible. And while this satellite data is presented in shades of gray, viewers on the ground saw colors ranging from green (most common) to purple to red. The color of an aurora is influenced by atmospheric compounds that occur at different altitudes.
Photo taken on May 11, 2024 near Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada. Photo credit: Gunjan Sinha
Photographers and aurora hunters have captured the impressive range of colors in ground-based photos, some of which have been captured with NASAs Aurorasaurus project. The citizen science project crowdsources eyewitness accounts that scientists can then use to verify models of where the aurora will be visible from the ground. Auroras occur high in the atmosphere, so observers on the ground may be able to observe them from a great distance.
Aurorasaurus launched in 2014 around the time of the last solar maximum — in the middle of a roughly 11-year cycle when the sun is most active and produces more sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections. The data collected by citizen scientists was very useful, but the 2014-15 solar maximum turned out to be relatively “weak,” noted Liz MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Aurorasaurus’ lead. When auroras lit up the sky, most smartphones couldn’t capture them.
Ten years later, the Sun’s activity has increased again, about halfway through the current solar cycle 25. Photos from May 10 and 11 show auroras associated with what NOAA called the most extreme geomagnetic storm since 2003. The above image, taken by Aurorasaurus Ambassador Gunjan Sinha, shows the sky on May 11, looking south from near Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada.
“This event was really the culmination of our vision for the program,” MacDonald said. “Large storms visible this far south are so rare and we have few opportunities to study them. Photos from citizen scientists can help us do that.”
NASA Earth Observatory image of Wanmei Liang using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Photo by Gunjan Sinha. Story by Kathryn Hansen.