The Northern Lights could return this week – 5 ways to plan your photo shoot
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The Northern Lights could return this week – 5 ways to plan your photo shoot

If you missed the recent show from the aurora borealis (or northern lights, as they’re known in the northern hemisphere), fear not – we could be on the cusp of a repeat during the week starting June 3. 

Although there are absolutely no guarantees, the part of the sun that caused a G5 geomagnetic storm (the strongest since 2003) last month has returned to face Earth. And the good news is that it’s still active.

According to NASA, the sunspot AR3697 (formerly known as AR3664) let rip an X-class solar flare, rated at X1.4, on May 29. Aurora is caused by the solar wind accelerating down the field lines of our planet’s magnetosphere – which is Earth’s armor against charged particles spewed into space by the sun.

(Image credit: NASA)

The solar wind and the aurora are caused by what astronomers call coronal mass ejections (CMEs), clouds of charged particles that can be shot into space from the sun in the wake of a solar flare.