The hills on the outskirts of Corvallis filled with people Friday night hoping to experience a once-in-a-lifetime moment—seeing the aurora borealis.
On May 9, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a media advisory forecasting a severe solar storm.
The storm started on May 8 and yesterday marked the most severe point.
According to Randall L. Milstein, a senior instructor in the physics department, the current storm is unprecedented and the last time a storm this big happened was in 2003.
The result of this severity was a breathtaking display of the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights.
In case you missed them, don’t lose hope, as the NOAA released an update this morning that the lights may appear again tonight … “May” being the key word.
According to the NOAA, forecasting space weather is difficult, due to relying on observation of the sun which is 93 million miles away from earth.
If the lights do return to the skies of Corvallis, a major tip from the NOAA is to use your phone camera.
According to them, phones nowadays can pick up light better than our eyes can, so if you can’t really see it, snap a picture without the flash and you might be surprised with what you see.
According to Milstein, this rare sighting is the result of a major magnetic storm that is taking place on the sun. Its magnetic field twists and turns, allowing sunspots to emerge, flare and explode.
“When the charged particles hit Earth’s magnetic field, they excite chemistry in our upper atmosphere and the different elements glow in different colors,” Milstein said.
“The eruptions are well into the X-class category, which is the most intense category of flares and the magnetic storms are G5s (extreme), the highest classification. The last time a sunspot this complex was this big goes back to 1859.”
Crowds of students and non-students alike gathered at places such as Chip Ross Park and Marys Peak to get a clear view of the beautiful phenomenon free of city light pollution.
Calum Sutherland, a pre-graphic design major, is one of these students. Alongside some friends, he tried to get out of the city to see the lights better.
“We drove over near Chip Ross, because we thought we might get a clear view being more north, and honestly we weren’t expecting to see anything being on the far edge of the forecast,” Sutherland said.“But then when we pulled up to this random road alongside a field we saw 10 to 15 other cars, and when we looked up and saw a few faint streaks of light, but after taking a picture the lights were truly visible.”
Sutherland said he has always wanted to see them, and even if he wished they were more visible to the naked eye, he still thought they were very cool.
Norman O’Brien, a computer science major, went north east of the fair grounds around 11:30 with 3 roommates.
According to O’Brien, the view they got was clear and amazing.
“It was honestly amazing, I never thought I’d see the lights in my lifetime, at least like that, it was definitely on the bucket list,” O’Brien said.
For those who missed the event, a photo gallery of the view from Corvallis can be found here.
