Northern lights lit up the sky, particularly in Corsica, on the night of Wednesday January 1 to Thursday January 2. A rare phenomenon at such low latitudes due to intense solar activity.
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From Corsica to Indre via the Pyrenees, where the sky was clear, amateur astronomers posted photos of the pink-purple lights on social networks. A spectacle also observed in Great Britain, Switzerland or Austria.
“The Northern Lights show resumes! If the sky is clear, take long exposure photos towards the north!”enthused astrophysicist Eric Lagadec on the BlueSky network.
Polar auroras appear when jets of hot, magnetic particles, generated by solar flares and called coronal mass ejections (CME), reach the Earth's environment.
The streams of ionized particles projected at colossal speeds strike the Earth's magnetic field, which serves as a shield protecting the planet.
They are then accelerated towards the magnetic poles. This explains why they are commonly observed at latitudes beyond the Polar, Arctic and Antarctic circles. In the latter case we speak of the auroras australis.
But if the CMEs are more powerful, these auroras descend further south towards the equator.
In May, a historic solar storm set the sky ablaze around the world, as far away as California and Australia. Because every eleven years, our star experiences a peak of activity linked to the reversal of its magnetic poles.
On this occasion, the Northern Lights were visible in Corsica.
“We are reaching maximum activity, therefore solar flares, coronal mass ejections…”explains Milan Maksimovic, astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory – PSL, to AFP.
This maximum of solar activity “should take place in 2025 or early 2026“, he adds. “There will be phenomena like this for at least one or two more years. After that, it will decrease.”
At our latitudes, however, these phenomena are difficult to see with the naked eye. “Unless the aurora borealis is very intense, you only see a kind of milky band in the sky,” warns Mr. Maksimovic.
The best way to capture one is to use a camera or smartphone and “to pause for three seconds” to accumulate light and see a sky tinged with purple, red or pink appear on your screen, he advises.
