Early Tuesday morning, Hilde Van den Heuvel looked out of her window in Lower Springfield, N.S., and saw the northern lights hovering above her house, filling the nighttime sky. “I could see the rays, so I knew they were there,” said Van den Heuvel, who is a retired professional photographer. “I just get so excited when the northern lights are out, because it’s a hobby and it’s a lot of fun.” Saint Mary’s University astronomy technician Tiffany Fields said this latest display of northern lights lit up the sky with a palette of sparkling colours beginning late Monday night, lasting until early Tuesday morning. “For so many people across Canada and the United States, they had an extremely intense display of red and green northern lights,” said Fields. The northern lights happen when charged particles are released from the sun and enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The U.S.-based Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has already ranked this latest solar storm as the most intense aurora display in more than 20 years. “The way that it interacted with our magnetic field, sort of winded and increased and decreased again over the night,” said Fields. She added that, while it may seem we are seeing more northern lights displays than in the past, that is not the case. Scientific technology has advanced in recent years, giving experts the ability to predict when the northern lights are going to happen, so more people can see them. “It allows all of us to look up into the sky and wonder what is happening, and participate in a shared experience,” said Fields. In this instance, the experience was a once-in-a-generation solar storm, that filled the nighttime sky with vivid colours.
