IN PICTURES, IN PICTURES – A geomagnetic storm caused by a wave of solar particles caused the emergence of northern lights visible across the continent this Sunday evening.
Threads of light illuminate the sky. Europe and France in particular were crossed by the Northern Lights early in the evening this Sunday, November 5th, as evidenced by numerous photos shared on social networks. From Pas-de-Calais to the Alps and as far as Slovakia and Ukraine, the phenomenon, usually limited to latitudes closer to the pole, has manifested itself across the Old Continent.
It is a wave of solar particles that causes “a geomagnetic storm and the formation of an aurora borealis visible from France,” explained At the scientific mediator Pierre Henriquet.
An aurora borealis occurs when beams of hot and magnetic particles produced by solar flares reach Earth’s surroundings. The streams of ionized particles thrown at enormous speed then hit the Earth’s magnetic field, which serves as a protective shield for the planet. “These charged particles excite the particles in the atmosphere, especially oxygen and nitrogen, which give the green and pink of an aurora borealis, respectively,” explains Éric Lagadec, astronomer at the Côte d’Azur Observatory, to AFP.