Spectacular photos show the Northern Lights around the world

A series of powerful solar storms colorful skies across the northern hemisphere this weekend, as people witnessed brilliant displays of the northern lights in the United States, Canada, Europe, China and beyond. Authorities said the dazzling light shows could continue for several more days.

The Northern Lights – a phenomenon more commonly known as the Northern Lights – occur due to a molecular collision in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere that causes bursts of energy to be released in the form of visible light. The Northern Lights have their counterpart, the Aurora Australis, or Aurora Australis, which is the same phenomenon in the Southern Hemisphere. These light shows can be visible for up to halfway through the year in some locations near either of the planet’s two poles, but it is rare to see them in areas closer to the equator, that’s why shows on North AmericaEurope and other places at similar latitudes have been a real treat these past few days.

Auroras extend from the poles toward the equator during periods of intense space weather activity, and have historically been known to extend to the continental United States when activity is particularly extreme . That was the case this weekend, when an unusually strong geomagnetic storm reached Earth and set the stage for a series of explosive nighttime scenes around the world. The geomagnetic storm that arrived Friday was a historic G5, the highest level on a rating scale that begins at G1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A solar storm of this size hasn’t made contact with Earth in decades. It arrived amid a parade of coronal mass ejections – eruptions of magnetic field and other solar material from the sun’s corona that can cause geomagnetic storms – that continued to fuel aurora shows throughout long Friday and Saturday. The next bursts of solar material are expected to arrive on Earth at noon Sunday, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which has issued a geomagnetic storm watch in anticipation of G4 or G5 events likely following these upcoming coronal mass ejections.

“Watches of this level are very rare,” the Space Weather Prediction Center said in an advisory Saturday. He noted that impending solar activity could potentially make the auroras “visible over much of the northern half of the country, and perhaps as far south as Alabama to northern California.”

In anticipation of the next round of solar flares, here’s a look at some bright auroras that have materialized so far this weekend in different parts of the world.