On Thursday October 10, skies over the British isles were illuminated by the unprecedented spectacle of those merry dancers, the Aurora Borealis.
On this night the Polar Lights, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, were seen as far south as Portsmouth in Hampshire, as well as in skies above Kesgrave in Suffolk, Frieth in Buckinghamshire and Gwynedd in Wales.
There is little to wonder about the impression its appearance had on people, after all a poll of 2,088 British adults has shown that seeing the Northern Lights is the most popular item on our national bucket list.
David Morris, resident of the village of Hook in North Hampshire, described it as “majestic!”, adding, “who would’ve thought you’d see the northern lights in Hampshire.”
There is no doubt that this sentiment was reciprocated far and wide.
But how exactly is it that this multihued miracle occurs?
It all begins some 92 million miles away; the sun blasts charged particles known as electrons and protons into space forming a solar wind.
This solar wind moves through space at speeds of between 250-500 miles a second, nevertheless, when it reaches the earth it simply slides around and off the atmosphere, redirected by our terrestrial home’s naturally occurring magnetic fields.
However, during this process the magnetic field lines are dragged and stretched, resulting in snap-like movements, causing some of these charged particles to be delocalised and flung directly towards the earth along the lines themselves.
The aurora itself forms when said particles react with gases in the earth's upper atmosphere.
Each reaction produces a single flash, but the culmination of billions of these individual reactions comes together to create the distinctive dancing form of the Aurora Borealis.
And yet one thing remains; readers will be forgiven for assuming that its southern escapades are irregular occurrences, but they are, in reality, actually exceptionally periodic performances.
The sun follows an 11 year lunar cycle, the last and most active year of which falls neatly upon 2024.
At this time the strength of geomagnetic storms is at its highest, therefore, a greater quantity of charged particles are stolen into the earth's upper layers and spread further than they otherwise normally would have been.
The true reason for its anonymity in decades past is the apparent difficulty of observing it.
Since activity is relatively weak this far south, a camera is required to properly distinguish the colours and contours of the lights.
Very simply, the camera distinguishes the light from the dark, a feat which the human eye cannot fully accomplish alone.
Many people across the nation will likely be asking when next our skies will be so gracefully illuminated, and to this there are mixed prospects.
A spokesperson from the Met Office has projected ‘solar maximum’ to occur either late 2024 or early 2025 and though it is possible for it to be viewable past this event, activity will naturally decline until the lead-up to 2035 begins, at which point the 11 year lunar cycle will have been conducted once again.
In the meantime the iridescent phenomenon will still be visible at its most frequented spots around the globe: in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Iceland and, yes, even Scotland, free for all to see.
Though now many folks across Hampshire and the rest of Britain may declare quite proudly that they didn’t need to go to any of these places abroad or even up north, but simply outside their front door, for there it was on that most memorable of nights, the Aurora Borealis.
