Northern China basks in aurora light show – but solar storms that caused them pose risk to satellites and communications
- The display is usually only seen in high latitudes, but came far south enough to reach large swathes of the country due to ‘strongest aurora in 20 years’
- While many people just enjoyed the spectacle, forecasters warned that powerful geomagnetic storms could disrupt communications and navigation
The night skies above parts of northern China, including Beijing, came alive with a rare aurora display over the weekend thanks to a series of solar geomagnetic storms – and more could be on the way.
The sky show started on Friday night and continued into Sunday morning, giving people from Xinjiang in the west to Heilongjiang in the northeast a look at an atmospheric phenomenon usually seen at high latitudes nearer to the north or south poles.
Sightings of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, were also reported in Gansu province, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and the capital Beijing, where some enthusiasts captured the display near the Great Wall on Saturday night.
The official China News Service said it was the “strongest aurora in 20 years”.
The phenomenon, which was visible in many countries across the northern hemisphere, was caused by powerful geomagnetic storms, or disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field, which can also disrupt telecommunications equipment in orbit and on the ground.
The storms were so strong that the China National Space Weather Monitoring and Early Warning Centre issued a red alert, the highest warning level, for geomagnetic storms on Saturday morning.
