{"id":592,"date":"2017-03-02T14:51:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T14:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/aurorawatchuk\/?p=592"},"modified":"2017-03-02T15:50:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T15:50:57","slug":"round-up-of-uk-aurora-01-02-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/aurorawatchuk\/2017\/03\/02\/round-up-of-uk-aurora-01-02-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Round up of UK aurora 01-02 March"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a quiet start to the new year for aurora watchers\u00a0in the UK, with only a single\u00a0amber alert<\/a> being issued\u00a0in the whole of January and February combined. Perhaps this isn’t unsurprising considering that we are currently heading into a solar minimum, a drop in solar activity\u00a0resulting from the Sun’s 11-year cycle<\/a>. But, as reported by AuroraWatch UK team member Dr Nathan Case in this article<\/a>, this doesn’t mean that the beloved northern lights will completely vanishing anytime soon.<\/p>\n

AuroraWatch UK alert status<\/h2>\n

On March 1st 2017, going into the morning\u00a0of the 2nd, the UK received a whopping 13 total hours of elevated geomagnetic activity with 5 of those hours\u00a0strong enough to trigger an amber alert level.<\/p>\n

AuroraWatch UK geomagnetic activity and alert levels for 01-02 March 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n

Cause of activity<\/h2>\n

This rise in activity was predicted by the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre last week<\/a>. They cited something called a ‘negative polarity coronal hole high speed stream’, or a just a CH HSS for short, as the cause. We go into some more detail on coronal holes, and what they mean for the aurora, in one of our\u00a0previous posts<\/a>. The ‘negative polarity’ part of the name refers to the Sun being like a big bar magnet in space, just like the Earth but much bigger:<\/p>\n

A picture of the Sun with magnetic field lines drawn on top in red and blue. Image source: https:\/\/svs.gsfc.nasa.gov\/11429<\/p><\/div>\n

In the image above, the red lines show the solar magnetic field coming out of the north pole and going into the south pole in blue.\u00a0The CH HSS we experienced was negative polarity because it was located near to the solar south pole, so the magnetic field was travelling into it. This is simplified however, as there is usually a lot more going on causing a big mess of field lines like this:<\/p>\n

A closer look at what the Sun’s magnetic field looks like. Credits: NASA\/SDO\/AIA\/LMSAL<\/p><\/div>\n

Because the Sun is so huge, it’s magnetic field extends not only to Earth, but past all the planets in our solar system and into interstellar space (right where the Voyager 1<\/a> probe is right now!).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The effects of the CH HHS are expected to diminish in the coming hours and so further activity is unlikely, but possible.<\/p>\n

UK Sightings<\/h2>\n

The past few days have seen a bit of a mixed bag weather-wise, with half the country seeing some rain and the other half clear skies<\/a>. The north of the country, which is the best place<\/a> to be to see the northern lights, for the most part had good viewing conditions. As we can see from the photos below, large parts of Scotland and Northumbria (England) were in for a particularly good show.<\/p>\n

Isle of Bute, Scotland<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Aurora Borealis
Port Bannatyne
Isle of Bute
just after 22.23 tonight pic.twitter.com\/fkZ80bA6U4<\/a><\/p>\n

— John Williams (@williamsjohn76) March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n