Rare red auroras appear over America's and Europe's north, and more are on their way

 

A stream of solar plasma arrived at Earth Feb. 16, supercharging the atmosphere with particles from the solar wind that triggered rare red aurora displays across vast portions of Canada, northern U.S. and Europe. And space weather forecasters promise that more is on its way.

Twitter has been virtually awash over the past days with skywatchers' images and accounts of spectacular aurora sightings. The latest wave of dancing polar lights has been especially striking, as it arrived in rare shades of red that require higher concentrations of solar wind particles to penetrate deeper into Earth's atmosphere. 

Red aurora sightings have been reported by photographers in Scotland and Norway. 

"No words for last night's show over Kåfjorddalen, Norway," aurora chaser Adrien Mauduit, who tweets from the @NightLights_AM Twitter account, shared(opens in new tab) with a selection of images capturing fireworks-like explosion of purple and green above a snow-covered landscape. 

The aurora overload is expected to continue and possibly get even more intense as a coronal mass ejection (CME), a burst of plasma from the sun's upper atmosphere that erupted from the sun Feb. 15 is arriving at Earth today. 

Aurora sightings as far south as the north of England and the U.S. can be expected. Geomagnetic storms are expected to carry on until at least Feb. 19.