Northern Lights display could come alive tonight thanks to solar flare

If the skies are clear and you can find a dark location, you may see a spectacular display of the Northern Lights tonight from just about anywhere in the Chicago area, astronomers say.

The best way to see the Northern Lights, said Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, is look to the northern sky from a spot away from the interference of city lighting.

“You would also need a clear view of the northern horizon,” Hammergren said. “You would have to have a clear view of the north because the lights will not likely be overhead.”

Meteorologist Amy Seeley of the National Weather Service said the area will have partly cloudy skies and good visibility tonight when the sun sets, with temperatures in the upper 30s or low 40s. Visibility should be about 7 miles, she said.

The Northern Lights will be on full display, thanks to a solar flare that hit the Earth at 5 a.m. today.

That event could potentially cause magnetic disruptions in GPS Systems or cellular phone devices, scientists said, when the flare left the sun Tuesday.

But, those fears were never realized, Hammergren said.

“Our power grids are fine and it's not even close to the end of the world as some people are worried about,” he said. “It kind of annoys me to hear in the media that people should be worried about this.”

Scientists said it would be the largest solar flare in five years racing toward Earth and threatening to unleash a torrent of charged particles.

“It's hitting us right in the nose,” said Joe Kunches, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He called it the sun's version of “Super Tuesday.”

Hammergren said a solar flare is caused when magnetic fields inside a sun collapse or twist and release a burst of energy. The violent effect will cause charged particles to blow outward from the sun and race toward our atmosphere.

However, he said, the magnetic particles from the sun are attracted to the north and south poles of the Earth, and do not fall from the heavens like meteors or asteroids.

“We will not see what may look like shooting stars or anything racing to the planet,” he said. “What we may actually see is a display of the Northern Lights coming alive as all the magnetic particles race to the north and magnetize the molecules in the atmosphere.”