Aurora lights up sky in US, Europe due to severe solar storm

The northern lights brightened the night sky in many places around the world, including the US, Europe and even New Zealand on May 10.

The gigantic, magnificent aurora in pink, green and purple was caused due to severe solar storm headed towards the earth.

Earlier, US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had issued a rare geometric storm watch, the first in nearly 20 years.

Pictures of the aurora were widely shared on social media.

The NOAA said the sun produced strong solar flares beginning Wednesday, resulting in five outbursts of plasma capable of disrupting satellites in orbit and power grids here on Earth. Each eruption — known as a coronal mass ejection — can contain billions of tons of solar plasma.

NOAA is calling this an unusual event, pointing out that the flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that's 16 times the diameter of Earth. An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003 took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

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