Night

It finally happened!  I can't count how many times I have left the house late at night with the hope of capturing the aurora borealis over Marblehead Light.  The northern lights occur when charged particles enter the Earth's atmosphere.  On March 15, two coronal mass ejections sprouted from the Sun and headed towards Earth bringing with them a LOT of those charged particles.  The strength of the aurora is measured in Kp values and, in Marblehead, we need to hit at least a Kp of 7 for any hope of seeing the northern lights.  When the charged particles arrived on Earth [...]