Aurora Borealis Catches Drew by Surprise

People across the northeast and on Drew’s campus gathered outside to witness the spectacle of the northern lights Thursday night, Oct. 10. 

During the particularly bright atmospheric event, people as far south as Texas, Mississippi and Alabama reported seeing the lights.

Across Drew’s campus, students rushed outside to view the red lights float across the sky during this once in a lifetime event.

“I thought it was very surreal and I’m so glad I got to see it,” said Samantha DeFalco (‘26).

Skylar Anderson (‘27) said, “It was an incredible experience. I ended up lying in the grass just so I could stare up at the sky for longer because it was so gorgeous.”

Students also expressed that they felt extremely lucky to see the northern lights locally and how the event seemed serendipitous.

“I thought it was cool how Drew got such a great view of it. I live locally and my parents didn’t see them, literally down the street. With something that is so unlikely to happen, we were all in such a great place to see them,” said graduate student Gillian Sampson (C ’24).

Sabr Keres-Siddiqui (‘27) also said, “Somerset County didn’t see much either, even though it’s pretty close. I feel pretty lucky to have been able to see them that well.”

Drew students can thank a combination of remarkably clear skies on Thursday and recent solar activity, which allowed the lights to be observed much farther south than usual.

The aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, “are an atmospheric phenomenon that’s regarded as the Holy Grail of skywatching,” according to Stefanie Waldek and Daisy Dobrijevic via Space.com. 

The aurora borealis—and the aurora australis, their southern counterpart—are a result of solar winds carrying energized particles into the Earth’s atmosphere. Upon contact with the atmosphere, the Earth’s magnetic field ushers the particles towards the poles. At the same time, the particles “interact with our atmosphere, depositing energy and causing the atmosphere to fluoresce,” said Billy Teets, the director of Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. 

This interaction is more common during geomagnetic storms and after coronal mass ejections from the sun. Scientists can produce forecasts for the auroras based on the cycle the sun is in. The sun rotates through a roughly 11 year cycle, characterized by the strength and frequency of activity.  “In each of these cycles, the sun emits solar flares and coronal mass ejections of varying frequency and strength,” said Andrew Stutzke of WQAD8.

In 2019, when the sun entered Solar Cycle 25, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  forecasted that it would be a fairly weak cycle, similar to Solar Cycle 24. 

“While we are not predicting a particularly active Solar Cycle 25, violent eruptions from the Sun can occur at any time,” said Doug Biesecker, Ph.D., panel co-chair and a solar physicist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in 2019.

This was proven true this fall as “the number of actual observed sunspots has exceeded the current forecast based on historical averages, marking an exceptionally active period for the sun recently,” said Stutzke.

People can expect to see more atmospheric activity in the next year, as NOAA expects a solar maximum during the summer of 2025.
You can view NOAA’s Aurora Borealis forecast– the Aurora Viewline for Tonight and Tomorrow Night– on their website.

Sierra Walker is a senior double-majoring in media and communications and marketing, with a minor in Spanish.

Featured image courtesy of Melanie Sanchez.