The life of an aurora chaser is not an easy one. Specific solar and atmospheric conditions need to align perfectly for them to indulge their passion fully.
But every 11 years or so, when the poles of the sun flip, if the solar flares that erupt from its surface are facing Earth, and the planet is tilted at the right angle in accordance with the season and the atmosphere is clear (and preferably when the night is young), the persistent aurora chaser will be rewarded with a liquid light show that swallows the sky.
It happened overnight on Thursday and Friday.
After several nights of increasingly dramatic Aurora Australis events, a solar burst rouged the sky from the South Pole to as far north as Queensland, with ribbons of light rippling down from the heavens from around 4.30am on Friday.
“I’m lost for words,” said professional photographer Marc Ilicic, who had visited Tasmania earlier in the week to capture the event, but still managed to witness its greatest iteration from back home on the Gold Coast.
“I don’t think I’ll ever see that again in my lifetime. I never, ever thought I would be able to stand on the Gold Coast and see the lights. It’s really, really special.”
Aurora Australis viewed from the Blue Mountains in the early hours of October 11.Credit: Facebook anonymous
Auroras can typically only be seen in the very far north and south of our planet. But a recent period of extreme solar activity has meant so many charged particles are striking out of our atmosphere that the colourful shows have been seen much further north.
They occur shortly before the sun’s magnetic field flips, when there is a dramatic increase in solar activity that is known as solar maximum. As the sun’s power grows, a huge charge of energy and charged particles from its surface flies towards the Earth. Most of them are deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field, but a few sneak through.
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