Aurora borealis spotted in the Swiss sky
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Northern Lights spotted over Switzerland
The Northern Lights, aka aurora borealis, were visible in parts of Switzerland on Thursday evening. But variable cloud cover meant that the spectacular natural lightshow could not be seen everywhere.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Français
fr
Aurores boréales aperçues dans le ciel suisse
Original
They appear during geomagnetic storms when disruptions in the Earth’s magnetic field occur, giving rise to hours of brilliant auroras generally at higher latitudes. They are rare in Alpine regions, reports Meteonews.
Typically, this dazzling spectacle is most prominently observed at a higher latitude, closer to the magnetic north and south poles, where these phenomena are known as the aurora australis. As geomagnetic activity increases, the region of the aurora expands to lower latitudes, in the direction of the equator. When geomagnetic activity is very high, the aurora may be seen at much lower latitudes around Earth that would otherwise rarely experience these polar lights.
The light phenomenon occurs when electrically charged particles from the solar wind encounter oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere and ionize them. This is how the different colours are formed. In the green zone, the aurora borealis comes from an altitude of around 100 to 200 kilometres and in the red zone from an altitude of over 200 kilometres.
Translated from French with DeepL/sb
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Should raw milk sales be banned or should consumers decide?
Swiss food regulations do not allow raw milk to be sold for direct consumption. However, a loophole allows 400 raw milk vending machines to do just that.
Switzerland imposes entry ban on far-right Austrian activist Martin Sellner
This content was published on
Switzerland has imposed an entry ban on the far-right Austrian extremist Martin Sellner. This prevents him from speaking at an event planned by the Swiss Junge Tat far-right group in canton Zurich.
Security firm Sicpa cuts jobs in western Switzerland
This content was published on
Sicpa, a company specialising in security inks, announced on Thursday that it plans to cut up to 120 jobs in canton Vaud, citing a complicated international economic context and geopolitical tensions.
UK resumes trade talks with Switzerland in ‘Global Britain’ push
This content was published on
British and Swiss trade negotiators will resume trade talks on Monday as they seek to broker deeper access to each other’s financial services markets as well as agreements on data sharing and worker visas.
Swiss army suspends CHF320m project for airspace surveillance
This content was published on
The Swiss parliament approved almost CHF320 million for "Skyview" airspace surveillance system. The reason for the suspension is problems with the integration of the system.
Murdered student: Paris asks Bern to extradite suspect
This content was published on
On Wednesday, France submitted an extradition request to the Swiss authorities for the man suspected of murdering Philippine. This was announced Thursday morning by the French Minister of Justice, Didier Migaud, on BFMTV.
Swiss bearded vulture rare win amid global wildlife catastrophe
This content was published on
The reintroduction of bearded vultures in Switzerland is a rare bright spot amid a global wildlife catastrophe in the last 50 years.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.