Belgium and the Netherlands were surprised tonight with a beautiful gift from Mother Nature: the northern lights. It involved photographic northern lights, which are only visible on a camera. Several people were able to take images of the spectacle.
The space weather website Poollight.be posted images of northern lights in the East Flemish municipality of Maldegem on X (formerly Twitter). Including the weather website NoodweerBenelux reports aurora in the province of Limburg and there are also reports from the province of Antwerp.
The northern lights – usually in the form of a pink glow – have also been spotted in the south and center of the Netherlands. The glow is caused by electrically charged particles from the sun colliding with the atmosphere at high speed. This produces pink and green light phenomena.
Exceptional
The Northern Lights can be seen exceptionally in our country. In February and September of this year there were reports of several people who had managed to photograph the Northern Lights. This is due to increased solar activity.
Sunday’s aurora is thanks to a strong solar storm that arrived on Earth on Sunday morning. This is what Petra Vanlommel, space weather expert at the Solar Terrestrial Center of Excellence (STCE), told VRT NWS. “On a scale of 0 to 9, this storm had a magnitude of 7.”
What are the Northern Lights?
The Northern Lights are a natural phenomenon that occurs when the Sun sends charged particles towards Earth at high speeds. These particles encircle the Earth’s magnetic field and traverse the atmosphere through the polar regions. They usually move at altitudes between 100 and 300 kilometers.
When these particles enter the atmosphere, they come into contact with various gases in the air. This creates colorful light phenomena. The colors of the Northern Lights vary depending on which gases the charged particles encounter at different altitudes.
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