Northern Lights can be seen with the naked eye in the Netherlands

NOS News•yesterday, 11:07 PM•Amended today, 03:21

The Northern Lights could be seen in many places in the Netherlands last night. The special natural phenomenon could even be observed with the naked eye. This only happens a few times a year: normally the phenomenon can only be seen with a correctly set camera.

In North Friesland it produced these kinds of pictures:

Northern lights can be clearly seen in the north of Friesland

The green-red glow is caused by a solar storm: an eruption of electrically charged particles from the sun. This releases energy, resulting in the play of colors in the sky.

According to Eelco Doornbos, space weather specialist at the KNMI, there is a lot of activity in the air. “The heavier the storm, the higher the activity and the brighter the light,” says Doornbos. “Now the Northern Lights are hanging over the south of Sweden. Because they are so high in the sky, you can see them on the northern horizon.”

Last May was one of the strongest solar storms in twenty years. The Northern Lights could even be seen at Schiphol, where there is a lot of light pollution. “That was a really unique situation,” says Doornbos.

Anyone who missed the Northern Lights last night doesn’t have to worry. There is a good chance that the phenomenon will soon return to the Dutch sky.

This is due to the cycle of solar activity, which lasts eleven years. In such a cycle there is a period of many explosions on the Sun and a period of fewer solar storms. “There has been a lot of activity since 2022. And since last year there have been two to three geomagnetic storms per year that are heavy enough to see the light so beautifully above the Netherlands. So it will happen more often,” Doornbos expects.