The breathtaking Northern Lights danced in the skies last night…with gorgeous greens and purples the brightest visibility was outside of city areas around 10 pm last night. Here are a few of the  pics submitted by our listeners on our Facebook page.

According to the National Weather Service of Grand Forks they reported that with generally clear skies anticipated for most and a moderate to strong geomagnetic storm ongoing, conditions were favorable for northern lights viewing last night, Thursday, March 23, 2023.

 

The light show we see from the ground is caused by electrically charged particles from space entering the Earth’s upper atmosphere at a very high speed. These particles originate from our star the Sun. More on Northern Lights Forecast.

Name Origin

In the early 17th century, the astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei named this phenomenon Aurora Borealis. Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn, and Boreas was the Greek name for the north wind. Galilei thought that an aurora was caused by the sunlight reflected from the atmosphere.