Stars End

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are not a common sight in South Central Texas.  An aurora is caused by the collision of charged particles from a coronal mass ejection (CME) with the Earth’s magnetic field. As a result of natural mechanism, energy releases in the atmosphere are made visible to the naked eye in the form of colorful lights.  Auroras illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red.

The northern lights in the south usually reveal their beauty in a rare, red glow.  All-red auroras appear at times when intense geomagnetic storms hit the Earth, but are not fully understood.

On March 13, 1989, a massive CME slammed into Earth.  The solar storm this collision caused was called “The Quebec Blackout Storm”, and was seen as far south as Florida and Cuba.   The majority of people in the Northern Hemisphere had never seen such a spectacle in recent history.  The aurora from this storm was visible here in San Antonio as well, even from within the light dome, as a strong red glow in the north.

The media considered the spectacular aurora to be the most newsworthy aspect of the storm.  However, electrical ground currents created by the magnetic storm found their way into the power grid of the Hydro-Quebec Power Authority and the entire Quebec power grid collapsed. Six million people were affected as they woke to find no electricity to see them through a cold Quebec wintry night. This storm could easily have been a $6 billion catastrophe affecting most US East Coast cities.

The striking view of the aurora, shown below, was recorded from a site near El Paso, Texas and the Hueco Tanks State Historical Park on  15 September 2000 at a latitude just under 32° north. Polaris is the brightest star visible near the top and right of center while a Perseid meteor pierces the auroral glow left of picture center, below the bowl of the little dipper.

On August 28, 1859 a massive solar storm, called the Carrington Event, was the most powerful solar storm in recorded history. It occurred during solar cycle 10 and caused spectacular aurora seen all over the world even as fas south as  the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those aurora over the Rocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed. Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire. Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

Ice cores suggest that such a blast of solar particles happens only once every 500 years, but even the storms every 50 years could fry satellites, jam radios and cause coast-to-coast blackouts.

One of the many reports came from Galveston:
August 28 as early as twilight closed, the northern sky was reddish, and at times lighter than other  portions of the heavens.  At 7:30 PM a few streamers showed themselves. Soon the whole sky from Ursa Major to the zodiac in the east was occupied by the streams or spiral columns that rose from the horizon. Spread over the same extent was an exquisite roseate tint which faded and returned. Stately columns of light reaching up about 45 degrees above the horizon moved westward. There were frequent flashes of lightning along the whole extent of the aurora. At 9:00 PM the whole of the streaking had faded leaving only a sort of twilight over the northern sky.”

To view an aurora from here in South Central Texas, check with one of the space weather sites, such as SpaceWeather.com, on a regular basis for CMEs heading our way.  Aurora are best seen away from the city lights, but if we get a strong storm, like the one in 1989, lights may not be a problem.

Aurora in Texas is a post from: San Antonio SkyWatch.
Copyright © 2007-2012 by Scott Logan. All rights reserved.