SYDNEY: As some tucked into bed on Tuesday evening, others marvelled at a rare aurora australis spilling a rich palette of fluorescent hues across the skies.
The swirls of red, green, blue and purple were witnessed in New Zealand and Australia, reaching Canberra, Goulburn and Kiama.
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“We call it a geomagnetic storm. The earth’s magnetic field is disturbed,” said Dr Matthew Francis, space weather forecaster and research and development scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology.
An aurora event occurs when rapidly moving particles that originated from the sun are coming in and striking the very upper atmosphere, around 100 to 200 kilometres above the earth.
“The atmosphere is very thin but it still exists, and they are striking mainly oxygen and nitrogen, but basically just gas molecules,” said Dr Francis.
“The energy from that particle gets deposited into that molecule which then gets released as light.”
On Tuesday night that light sent excitement across social media, as those watching snapped rare photos of the light show.
