Fans of colored skies had noted it in their diary. The Northern Lights were expected this weekend, and enthusiasts (after a little waiting) were sometimes able to contemplate them during the night from Sunday to Monday in France! This was the case in North Brittany, for example: the Brest astrophotographer Alexandre Croisier
thus managed to capture these red columns around 2 a.m. – during peak activity – near the Pontusval lighthouse, in Plounéour-Brignogan-Plages (29).
Shortly after an impressive solar flare
It was not as bright as last spring, when the Breton sky, like that of northern France, was adorned with a sublime pink. But the spectacle at the beginning of October was well and truly worth a look. Which others elsewhere have also admired, whether in Roscoff (29), in Porspoder, but also in Calvados, the Somme, and elsewhere in the rest of France, when the sky (clear, this is the condition main) lent itself to it…
The most powerful solar flare recorded since 2017, and having erupted according to NASA between October 2 and 3, is surely not unrelated to all this. As a reminder, this type of phenomenon, by ejecting particles charged with energy towards the Earth, causes them to collide with gas molecules in our atmosphere. This shock is at the origin of these auroras which adorn the sky with beautiful colors. And make us dream a little…