Technicolour skies glow across Australia and NZ as solar flares trigger aurora australis

The skies above southern Australia and New Zealand glowed in technicolour on Tuesday night as the aurora australis was on full display.

Observations of the spectacular light phenomenon – caused by particles from geomagnetic storms entering the Earth’s atmosphere – were recorded from Tasmania and Melbourne to Western Australia and beyond, where onlookers watched bands of green, gold, red and orange transform the evening sky.

The spectacle came after Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology issued an aurora watch notice on Monday, stating that a sequence of large ejections of plasma from the sun’s corona, known as coronal mass expulsions, were expected to hit the Earth’s atmosphere at intervals from Monday until Wednesday.

When those charged particles connect with the Earth’s magnetic field, they create stunning displays at the poles known as auroras, with the bureau forecasting possible “significant geomagnetic activity and visible auroras during local nighttime hours”.

By about 9pm on Tuesday, keen observers were treated to the results of those coronal expulsions:

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

The bureau’s senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said the display on Tuesday was moderate to strong and could be seen as far north as southern New South Wales.

“We’re pretty lucky that we have quite a bit of dark sky in Australia and the clouds cleared up a little bit so we were able to spot it across a number of locations,” she said.

Aurora sightings were also expected on Wednesday evening but only “really far south,” she said.

In May, Australians witnessed one of the most significant displays of the aurora in decades, when the “extreme” celestial show was on view over two nights across the southern hemisphere.