Who has never dreamed of witnessing the Northern Lights, a spectacle that is as majestic as it is impressive? If the inhabitants of Nordic countries are lucky enough to be able to admire them every winter, in France, some have been able to observe luminous trails in the sky. Indeed, on Sunday November 5, 2023, numerous photos of these French Northern Lights were revealed on X. The phenomenon has been seen in Pas-de-Calais, the Alps, Auvergne, Alsace, and on the Côte d’Azur. This rare event in the French sky lit up the night. The phenomenon has also been observed in other countries, such as Ukraine, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. “The arrival this night of a wave of solar particles is causing at this very moment (Sunday evening) a geomagnetic storm and the formation of an aurora borealis visible from France”, indicated the same day on X the scientist Pierre Henriquet.
How to explain this phenomenon in France?
But then, how can we explain this phenomenon in France? An aurora borealis appears “when jets of hot and magnetic particles, generated by these solar flares, reach the Earth’s environment. The streams of ionized particles projected at colossal speeds then strike the Earth’s magnetic field, which serves as a shield protecting the planet.indicate our colleagues from Huffington Post in an article published on Monday November 6, 2023. “These charged particles will excite particles in the atmosphere, notably oxygen and nitrogen, which will give respectively the green and pink of an aurora borealis”had explained to theAFP, in February 2023, Éric Lagadec, astronomer at the Côte d’Azur Observatory. If the northern lights of the Arctic Circle are very often green, those observed in France and Europe present warmer colors, due in particular to their altitude. In any case, the spectacle was there and the French sky was tinged with pretty Northern Lights for one night.