On the night of October 10th, the aurora borealis was visible in much of the northern half of the United States and Europe, leading to beautiful photos of the green and pink tones of the Northern Lights. Since taking over the night sky, Aurora Borealis memes have also taken over social media sites.
According to the BBC, these solar storms cause charged particles from the sun to hit the Earth's atmosphere and light up the night sky in beautiful colors.
"Picture this as a big sneeze by the Sun," Dr. Affelia Wibisono, from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, told the BBC. "It can contain up to a million tons of charged particles."
This isn't the first time the sky was lit up by the light show phenomenon this year, with the last one happening in May. Space Weather Prediction Center forecast coordinator Shawn Dahl told CBS News, "We are in the midst of solar maximum. What that means is the sun is now this twisted-up mass of strong magnetic fields, and some of these are so localized and intense they reveal themselves as these sunspot groups."
He added that the level of activity is significantly higher than the international panel of scientific experts had originally thought, concluding that, "We're in for a ride the rest of this year, all of next year and even into 2026 before things will start to work their way back down to solar minimum."
All this means that we have many more lights in the night sky to enjoy in the next year or two, which people are doing in the best way they know how: by making memes about it. Here are some of the best Northern Lights memes from around the internet.
MRW I am told that the northern lights will be visible from central Illinois
byu/HappySkullsplitter inreactiongifs