Northern lights once again radiate country’s skies

KASTAMONU

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, have illuminated the Turkish skies for the second time.

Appearing in vivid shades of red, green and violet, the northern lights have lit up the horizon in both the northern province of Kastamonu and northwestern city of Sakarya.

“On the evening of Oct. 8, the sun experienced a coronal mass ejection that traveled at a speed of 2.5 million kilometers per hour. On Oct. 10 around 02:15 p.m., the plasma cloud that resulted from this quick ejection arrived on Earth and intensified a geomagnetic storm in the earth's magnetic field,” read the Turkish Space Agency’s (TUA) statement.

Though northern lights are often visible at northern latitudes, their appearance in mid-latitudes is a natural result of such G4 level geomagnetic storms, authorities from the agency emphasized.

This geomagnetic storm resulted in the dazzling skies over multiple cities in Türkiye's Marmara and Black Sea regions for the first time last year. Numerous people around the country captured the rare and colorful spectacle late on Nov. 5 and early Nov. 6, 2023.

"The number of solar eruptions on the sun's surface fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. According to this cycle, we will reach the peak of this period in 2025-2026. Then, we will enter a decreasing phase. However, these eruptions can sometimes be quite intense," Dr. Hasan Ali Dal, an associate professor at Ege University's Department of Astrophysics and the director of the Astronomy Observatory in the university, explained.