It’s not the first time this year: On Thursday evening, people in Baden-Württemberg once again photographed the northern lights in the sky.
Northern lights could be seen over several places in Baden-Württemberg on Thursday evening. This is shown by some photos that were published on social media. Among other things, people shared their observations in Stuttgart and surrounding districts, in Tübingen, in the Reutlingen district and also in Bad Schussenried (Biberach district).
However, the celestial spectacle was most visible in northern German cities such as Kiel, Hanover, Bremen, Wolfsburg, Potsdam and Berlin, as the photos shared on social media show.
Sun is particularly active at the moment
A week ago, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research announced the prospect of colorful northern lights over Germany. Accordingly, coronal mass ejections, i.e. huge clouds of solar plasma, are currently on their way to Earth. “But we don’t know whether there was a direct hit or a glancing blow,” the institute’s director, Sami Solanki, explained at the time. It was also said that even in the case of mass ejections that spread towards Earth, it is only possible to say very imprecisely in advance how strong they will be or how quickly they will spread.
If the coronal mass ejections reach Earth, they can generate geomagnetic storms. The US weather agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expected category G3 storms a week ago. The northern lights visible in large parts of Germany in May were triggered by a geomagnetic storm of category G5, the highest category.
In southern Germany, northern lights shimmer red rather than green
The solar storm produced impressive northern lights across Europe in the spring, which could be seen from the Black Forest, for example.
The northern lights in May over Baden-Württemberg in a photo series – also with pictures that our users sent us:
Unlike in Norway, Sweden or Alaska, the northern lights in Baden-Württemberg do not appear in green or blue colors. According to Martin Federspiel from the Planetarium Freiburg, red light is more likely to be seen in this country.
