LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Last night's New Year celebrations in the U.S. included fireworks, of course, lighting up the night sky. But in some parts of the country, you might have seen another bright show overnight - aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It turns out that 2024 was a big year for auroras. NASA says that solar storms back in May produced strong ones, perhaps the strongest in centuries. They were seen in parts of the U.S. that never see them. And that led to the auroras being visible all over the world, including places like the southern United States, northern India. Here's Shawn Dahl with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
SHAWN DAHL: We get so many observations from folks that see it much further south than we would have figured based off how we understand that normal boundary of the aurora.
FADEL: NOAA forecast predicted last night's auroras would likely be visible in northern states like Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, Iowa, perhaps even New York - not as close to the equator as the auroras from May, but still pretty far south for the northern lights.
INSKEEP: Dahl says this is because there's a lot of solar activity causing geomagnetic storms above the Earth.
DAHL: The stronger that activity, the more of those magnetic field lines of Earth that are closer to the equator they can work in, and that's why we see the aurora blossom much further south than normal - the higher levels of geomagnetic storming that exists.
FADEL: As Dahl explains the sun is on a cycle that typically lasts 11 years. Right now, the solar cycle is in its solar maximum phase. That means more bursts of magnetic fields and plasma from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs.
DAHL: And that's billions of tons of solar material and strong localized magnetic fields blasting off into space and headed wherever they're going. Currently, what we're experiencing right now is the arrival of one of these CMEs, and that's what's led to the storms.
INSKEEP: Well, if you missed the aurora last night, if hypothetically, Leila, you were going to bed early because...
FADEL: I mean...
INSKEEP: ...You work early...
FADEL: I mean...
INSKEEP: ...On New Year's Day - if you missed the aurora, you get one more chance. We get one more chance tonight, January 1.
FADEL: ...I'll probably be asleep, also.
INSKEEP: NOAA is predicting another geomagnetic storm, a beautiful way to bring in the New Year.
(SOUNDBITE OF MASON EMBRY TRIO'S "WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR'S EVE?") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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