The Northern Lights painted the skies of Mexico City, Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Baja California, Durango, Sonora and Zacatecas; a natural light phenomenon that occurs in the Earth’s atmosphere, especially in countries near the North Pole. The night light show of this Tuesday 11 November, and which will prevail in the afternoon of Wednesday 12, is due to a solar storm or a strong global geomagnetic storm, resulting from a coronal mass ejection – an explosion of plasma and magnetic field – from the Sun, as reported by the National Laboratory of Space Meteorology of the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) through a statement on its Facebook page. “No effects on human health or other living beings are expected. Possible effects are limited to sensitive technological systems,” it says.
The effects on technological systems to which UNAM refers in its press release are: HF radio communications (aeronautical, maritime and operational services); satellite positioning systems (GPS and GNSS) which will influence precision and synchronization; communication and observation satellites and large power grids (infrastructure responsible for transferring large amounts of energy over long distances).
The Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the G4 category geomagnetic storm, considered severe, is caused by a class X solar flare (the most intense on a scale of five: A, B, C, M and
In 2020, NASA announced that the Sun ended its 11-year cycle in December 2019 and began a new one. “Its activity is expected to increase to peak in July 2025; that would be a below-average cycle, but not without risk,” said physicist Doug Biesecker, a NOAA solar physicist at the time.
The lights will be visible in the afternoon of this Wednesday the 12th, especially in the northern states and in Bajío. The Astronomical Society of Nuevo León, for example, reported through its Facebook page that the phenomenon can be seen with the naked eye in the municipality of García. In the rest of the country it is advisable to stay out of large cities and wait for clear skies. In addition to Mexico, auroras have also painted the skies in the United States, such as in New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Iowa, Idaho and South Dakota.
