House telescope captures photo voltaic storm behind epic northern lights

You've probably already seen the stunning images of the Northern Lights that flooded social media over the weekend. Lucky viewers were treated to streaks of green, pink and purple dancing across the night sky from the UK to New Zealand.

𝑨𝑼𝑹𝑶𝑹𝑬𝑺 𝑩𝑶𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑳𝑬𝑺 𝑬𝑵 𝑭𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑪𝑬 – As if you were there in time lapse!
One-hour time lapse – Mont Saint-Michel – night of May 10th to 11th, 2024
𝑀𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑢 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑛 / All rights reserved #aurore #auroreboreale #france #northernlights #aurores #nuit pic.twitter.com/ipL1k9onGr

— Mathieu Rivrin – Photographs (@mathieurivrin) May 11, 2024

The breathtaking spectacle from May 10th to 12th was caused by the largest solar storm in over 20 years.

Solar storms occur when the Sun emits enormous bursts of energy in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These send streams of charged particles through space, where they hit Earth's magnetic field, mixing with gases in our atmosphere and igniting the auroras.

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That of the European Space Agency The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured the whole thing on camera.

The streaks of light you see passing the space telescope in the video above are streams of charged particles that form the so-called solar wind. The largest of these bursts was sent to Earth on May 11th.

More solar megastorms are coming

If, like me, you missed the fascinating Northern Lights over the weekend – don't worry, there's more to come.

The Sun is currently approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle of activity, known as “solar maximum.”

Scientists believe we could witness an even more magnificent northern lights later this year. When exactly this will be the case, however, requires some guesswork.

“It was originally predicted that the solar maximum would be in 2025, but it appears that the sun has reached its peak earlier than expected,” he said Rami Qahwaji, PProfessor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

Qahwaji is the founder of the Space Weather Prediction Group, which develops AI and computer vision technologies to monitor sunspot activity and predict solar storms.

AI could predict the next big solar eruption

The group has developed a tool called Automated Solar Activity Prediction (ASAP). The system consists of a series of AI models trained on thousands of satellite images of the sun to predict the occurrence of solar storms.

“Our system successfully predicted the recent solar storms that produced the Northern Lights across the UK last week,” he said Qahwaji.

The professor predicts that there will be more, perhaps even larger, storms in a few weeks.

Hopefully I won't be snoring to death at the next Aurora bonanza!