Americans living in states bordering Canada have a chance to see the northern lights on New Year's Eve, just as 2025 gets underway.
The Space Weather Prediction Center is forecasting a strong likelihood that an aurora will occur over much of Canada and Alaska. States such as Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota have the best chance in the contiguous U.S. of seeing Tuesday's potential aurora.
The aurora follows a coronal mass ejection that occurred on Saturday and Sunday. The Space Weather Prediction Center says that the coronal mass ejection could cause some minor effects on infrastructure.
Officials say they won't know the true potential of geomagnetic disturbances until the coronal mass ejection reaches about 1 million miles from Earth, which generally occurs 30-60 minutes before it reaches our planet.
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Auroras are caused by the solar wind interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. These auroras tend to navigate around the Earth’s magnetic poles.
“The solar wind particles funnel around to the long tail of the magnetosphere, where they become trapped,” NASA said. “When magnetic reconnection occurs, the particles are accelerated toward Earth’s poles. Along the way, particles can collide with atoms and molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere—an interaction that provides the atoms with extra energy, which is released as a burst of light. These interactions continue at lower and lower altitudes until all the incoming energy is lost. When we see the glowing aurora, we are watching a billion individual collisions lighting up the magnetic field lines of Earth.”
To view the northern lights, experts recommend looking to the north and being away from the light pollution caused by cities. The best time to observe the northern lights is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time.
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The greenish glow that results in auroras is caused by solar flares that interact with the Earth’s magnetic poles. These charged particles from the sun penetrate the planet’s atmosphere and cause photons to emit light.
