A rare sighting of the Northern Lights over the Santis in eastern Switzerland.
Foto-webcam.eu
Northern lights were spotted in Switzerland on Monday night. This phenomenon is only rarely visible in Switzerland, Meteoswiss said in response to a request from the Keystone-SDA news agency.
The reason for this is the currently strong solar activity, according to the Federal Office of Meteorology (Meteoswiss). For the Northern Lights to be visible in Switzerland, the solar activity must be exceptionally strong. But even on Monday night, the northern lights were only visible for a very short time in this country.
Auroras are caused by an interaction between charged particles from space and the Earth’s atmosphere. They are triggered by the so-called solar wind. This consists of charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, which are ejected from the sun.
When this solar wind reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, the charged particles are deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field and directed towards the polar regions. This process causes the particles to get close to the poles. Once the charged particles reach the atmosphere, they collide with the gases in the atmosphere, mainly oxygen and nitrogen.
These collisions release energy and light. The stronger the solar winds, the further south the Northern Lights are visible.
The color of the northern lights depends on the type of gas particles with which the charged particles in the atmosphere interact and on the altitude at which these interactions occur. Green northern lights often arise from interaction with oxygen in higher atmospheric levels, while red or violet colors can arise from interaction with nitrogen.
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