Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2024

4 ASTRO PUBLISHING JULY-AUGUST 2024 of intense solar flares associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This mass is composed of plasma, i.e., highly energetic charged particles (essentially protons and electrons) that are released in large quantities into space when the twisted lines of force of the magnetic fields of major active solar regions tear apart. When those particles and the “frag- ments” of magnetic fields that they bring with them impact the Earth’s magnetosphere at speeds that can reach 3,000 km/s (almost 2,000 M/S), what happens is that part of them are channeled towards the polar re- gions, colliding with atmospheric gases. This causes the excitation of the atoms that make up those gases (the outermost electrons move to higher energy levels), which quickly get rid of the surplus of energy by emitting photons at characteristic wavelengths: nitrogen in blue, mo- Can another Carrington Event occur? I n the first ten days of May, the spectacle of the auroras, usually re- stricted to the high latitudes of our planet, appeared almost as far as the tropics. Something similar last hap- pened at the end of October 2003. It is a rare event, and those who have managed to see the reddish hues of the auroras at low latitudes can con- sider themselves privileged. As with all auroras, those that ap- peared in May were the consequence by Michele Ferrara revised by Damian G. Allis NASA Solar System Ambassador