Solar Tsunami: Encore Tonight

A “solar tsunami” eruption of charged particles from a solar flare swept over the Earth on Tuesday night, bringing colorful displays of aurora borealis to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Norway, and other places in the northern latitudes.

Earlier on, satellites orbiting Earth found that almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun erupted on Aug. 1 in a series of C-class solar flares, driving coral mass ejections (CMEs) toward the Earth.

As one CME encountered the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field Tuesday night, the blast sparked a geomagnetic storm that lasted for nearly 12 hours—enough time for auroras to spread all the way from Europe to North America, according to spaceweather.com.

The auroras, also known as northern lights, gleamed turning the sky purple, green, blue, and orange.

Scientists are anticipating the arrival of a second, and possibly bigger CME cloud on Wednesday night as it is already en route across the 93-million-mile journey from the sun to the Earth.