Powerful Solar Storm Could Yield Stunning Auroras Tonight

(Credit: Petri jauhiainen/Shutterstock) If you go outside tonight and look up, you could witness the dazzling effects of some particularly stormy celestial weather. The Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA issued an alert this morning warning of a "Strong" geomagnetic storm buffering the upper regions of our atmosphere. The resultant wave of charged electrons could trigger alarms on some power systems in high latitudes and throw off satellite navigation systems, but the most visible effect should be the presence of magnificent auroras reaching down into the continental United States. The storm began around 10 a.m. Eastern time, and should continue for another few hours. The storm is the result of an uncommonly large hole in the sun's corona, which ejects a high-velocity stream of electrons into space. When the Earth's orbit takes it through this stellar wind, the particles interact with our magnetic field creating the fiery light display we ...