Timelapse: Aurora Over Lake Michigan

By Nancy Atkinson - October 14, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC | Planetary Science
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According to photographer

Shawn Malone

form Michigan, the aurora this fall have already been "insane!"

"We had a very strong auroral event here on October 2nd and 9th on Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan," Malone said via email. "and what you are seeing in this video is the interaction of the solar wind impacting the magnetosphere at millions of miles per hour, that interaction causing the northern lights."

These nights the aurora "really lit up," said Malone.

And there could be more aurora coming soon to the northern skies:

SpaceWeather.com

is reporting that a coronal mass ejection propelled toward Earth by an M1-class eruption on October 13th is expected to hit our planet's magnetic field on October. 15th. "Polar geomagnetic storms and high-latitude auroras are possible when the CME arrives," says SpaceWeather.

Of course, not all aurora actually look like this to the human eye -- you can

read our article from earlier today

about the reality of seeing aurorae with your eyes vs. a camera.

RADIANCE from LakeSuperiorPhoto on Vimeo.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com