Why are we seeing more northern lights further south? Air Zoo educator explains

Pictures of the northern lights began pouring into the FOX 17 newsroom on Thursday night. Friday, we caught up with Air Zoo educator Alex Jung about what makes the phenomena happen.

PHOTO COURTESY: Camie Fillion

PHOTO COURTESY: Christy Haas

“Which is the blasts of energy from the sun, either from solar flares, or coronal mass ejections, which... Coronal mass ejections are just blasts of plasma from the sun,” Jung explained.

“At times where our solar activity is really high, like it is right now, we have much more of that going on, so a lot of that energy hits our earth and passes through our magnetosphere,” he continued.

The energy passes through the magnetosphere and interacts with gas in our atmosphere.

Oxygen makes red colors. Purple and deep blues are from hydrogen and helium. Dark red is from nitrogen.

The possibility of seeing the northern lights will continue to be higher than normal — as the sun is in the peak of its cycle for activity through winter 2025.

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