NASA - At 9:00 a.m. MDT (1500 UT), NOAA's Space Environment Center reported that a strong geomagnetic storm was in progress. The storm is possibly the result of a shock observed in the solar wind on Oct 21 at 01:38UT (Oct 20 at 07:38 p.m. MDT), originating from a mass ejection on the Sun Oct 18. The shock front struck Earth's magnetosphere around 0240 UT on October 21.

The Ultraviolet Imager on NASA's polar spacecraft captured dramatic images this morning of an aurora borealis in progress over the northern United States. Aurorae -- sometimes called Northern Lights -- are luminous multi-colored curtains of light most often seen in the skies at very high northern and southern latitudes. They occur because Earth's magnetic field interacts with the solar wind, a tenuous mix of charged particles blowing away from the sun. Auroral light results from electrons and protons striking molecules in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

"This storm is notable, at least for us Americans, because it's producing aurora over the contiguous 48 states," said NASA/Marshall's Dr. Jim Spann a co-investigator on Polar's UVI instrument. "By 0704 UT the storm was going pretty strongly over the Hudson Bay and surrounding areas, and a few minutes later it was south of the 48th parallel. Anyone who was out looking at the sky over the Great Lakes at 2am might have seen some beautiful lights."

Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com