Northern lights in the region – BZ explains the sky phenomenon

The Northern Lights in Brandenburg at Lake Torgelow

A beautiful sight: the northern lights reflected in the water on Lake Torgelow Photo: Andre Pretzel

By Danilo Gladow

Jump on a plane to see the Northern Lights and fly to Iceland? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! The magical natural spectacle could be observed in the night from Sunday to Monday in Brandenburg. The sky was also bright on Monday evening.

In our latitudes, you can hardly see the northern lights. In the past few nights, however, this rare phenomenon could be observed in Brandenburg. Berlin only saw the usual night sky – but how does that happen?

“Solar flares eject electrically charged particles toward Earth. After about one and a half to two days, the particles reach our planet, are directed towards the poles by geomagnetic fields and enter our atmosphere there,” explains Dr. Monika Staesche (57), Director of the Planetarium at the Insulaner and the Wilhelm Foerster Observatory.

Upon entering, the particles would then electrically charge air molecules such as oxygen (green light) or nitrogen (red light). As soon as these molecules release the energy they have absorbed, they glow.

This is how the sky shone on Monday night near Rathenow (Brandenburg)

This is how the sky shone on Monday night near Rathenow Photo: picture alliance/dpa

So that they can also be seen in Brandenburg, an exceptionally large number of these charged particles are required. “So the eruption must have been very strong,” says the star expert.

Berliners are unlucky: “Bright city light mixes with the northern lights here – and you can’t see anything.”

By the way: the expert saw the last Northern Lights in Brandenburg towards the end of the 1990s. The next natural spectacle of this kind will probably be a long time coming.

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Current weather winter

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