Aurora

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‘Spectacular’ solar colours seen across southern night skies

Aurora australis has lit up skies across southern Australia after an “extreme” geomagnetic solar storm. Brightly coloured skies were visible in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. So what IS “Aurora australis” ? This is from the University of Tasmania: “Outer space is filled with electrically charged particles. When they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they can make it light up like a fluorescent light tube. This tends to happen in the polar regions, where Earth’s magnetic field is trapping...