Epic Geomagnetic Storm Erupts 80
astroengine writes "On Monday, at around 2 p.m. ET, a coronal mass ejection (CME) slammed into the Earth's magnetosphere. For a short time (between 3:06 p.m and 3:11 p.m. ET), energetic solar wind particles penetrated as deep as geosynchronous orbit — home to hundreds of communication satellites. As a consequence, a geomagnetic storm is underway, generating bright aurorae across very low latitudes."
Adds reader dtmos, quoting from Spaceweather, which also has a beautiful photo gallery: "'The impact strongly compressed Earth's magnetic field, directly exposing geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma, and sparked an intense geomagnetic storm. As night fell over North America, auroras spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous United States.' Aurora were seen as far south as Baileyton, Alabama."
Re:A little late (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know of an app, but this website offers alerts via twitter than can also go to your mobile. It's only for the UK so possibly not helpful for you in Alberta, but putting on here in case it's useful for UK readers.
http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/alerts
Re:First time northern lights viewer here.... (Score:0, Informative)
Hey bigger idiot. He didn't say the Milky Way was an aurora. He was stating he lives in a rural area where the Milky Way can be seen. It was giving context to how clear the night sky is and seeing the aurora.
Fucking dumbass.