Namibian sky lights up with rare aurora australis

The most beautiful shades of red – caused aurora australis, also known as the southern light – were captured around midnight on Friday by Evelyn Yeo, a visitor from Singapore to Namibia at Etosha National Park.

The photo was captured during a historic solar storm that impacted Earth throughout the night on Friday, 10 May and continued into Saturday.

The aurora was caused by a ‘severe’ G5 geomagnetic storm that reached Earth on Friday after several days of solar activity that sent several plasma explosions and magnetic fields (CME) towards Earth. G5 is the strongest level of a geomagnetic storm on a scale of G1 to G5. These storms are caused by charged particles from the sun, with the aurora being visible when small particles from the sun with an electric charge hit the atmosphere. In the northern hemisphere, the northern lights, or aurora borealis, appear. At lower latitudes, red auroras are more common because red occurs at higher altitudes and can be seen farther away from the pole.

A severe G5 storm is extremely rare, occurs on average for four days every 11 years and can severely disrupt communication on Earth, leading to power outages, among other things.

TEXT: Henriette Lamprecht

PHOTO: EVELYN YEO