The day dawn breaks in Brazil, we will be…

This Thursday (10) many people around the world witnessed a rare sight: the aurora borealis that can be seen through their windows, without the need for an expedition to the Arctic Circle.

Records were recorded in various places in both hemispheres — From rural towns, like Fish Creek, in Australia, to big cities like New York. If locations very far from the poles can see this phenomenon, what prevents it from happening in Brazil as well?

Well, here’s a brief explanation of what the aurora borealis is. Behind the scenes, these dance tapes are about very violent events. The lights are the result of electrically charged particles from the Sun colliding with oxygen molecules (O₂) and nitrogen (N₂) from the atmosphere at a speed of “mere” 72 million kilometers per hour.

The Earth’s magnetic field redirects these particles — The so-called solar wind, which is plasma, is the fourth state of matter — Towards the poles, in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. That’s why there are the aurora borealis (visible in the Northern Hemisphere) and the aurora australis (visible in the Southern Hemisphere).

Billy Teets, director of the university’s Dyer Observatory vanderbilt, In Tennessee, he says Space.com website Colors depend on gases. “Some of the dominant colors in aurora are red, which is produced by nitrogen molecules, and green, which is produced by oxygen molecules.” The color usually appears green in the north, while in the south the lights are redder.

Although the solar wind reaches Earth all the time, its intensity varies in predictable eleven-year cycles. At the very least, the Sun is going through a period of calm. After about five and a half years, as the star becomes more agitated, a solar maximum occurs – which we live now.

That’s why the Statue of Liberty received new funding last night. This week’s solar storm was the most intense recorded since May.

Before that, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) In the United States, geomagnetic storms of this intensity (4 on a scale of 1 to 5) were only recorded in 2005. In other words: this is a rare phenomenon.

All these winds have increased the load on the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere. The northern lights colored the skies of almost the entire Northern Hemisphere and reached as far as the Caribbean — While the southern films were filmed in New Zealand and, unexpectedly, in South Africa, Argentina and Chile.

If the aurora borealis takes such atypical paths, why can’t it be seen in Brazil?

The first reason Jorge Ben Jor actually sings: because you live in a tropical country. Although the recent solar storm was powerful, it only intensified the usual path of lights around the poles. Brazil is too close to the equator to be included in the fluorescent range.

Here, the closest sightings were in Uruguay, in a city about 100 kilometers from Rio Grande do Sul. You could say that South Africa is on the same latitude as the Gauchos — By this logic, the far south of the country should have had the opportunity to follow this phenomenon.

It turns out that the Brazilian territory is doubly disadvantaged.

We are located in the South Atlantic Anomaly, an area characterized by a weak Earth’s magnetic field. andThis is a small part of the planet that is not susceptible to phenomena such as the aurora borealis. Like him, For an event of this type to occur in Brazil, a solar storm of exceptional size would be necessary.

“The probability of an extreme event that compresses the magnetic field to the point of releasing molecules into the atmosphere is very low, perhaps once every thousand years,” says Gabriel Heckel, Ph.D., an astrophysicist and professor at Harvard’s Institute of Physics and Chemistry. Federal University of Itajuba (UNIFEI), For the newspaper Economic value.

Although geomagnetic storms do not pose an immediate danger to humans, they can cause significant damage to our technological infrastructure.

One major concern is electricity grids. Strong storms can generate electrical currents in transmission lines, overloading transformers and leading to blackouts, as happened in Quebec, Canada, in 1989. — Or the Carrington Incident in 1859, which caused serious problems in the telegraph network, the most advanced communications technology of the time.

Satellites in orbit are also vulnerable to these events. A strong solar incident could damage the electronics on board, interrupt communication with Earth and other satellites, and shorten the useful life of these devices.

In aviation, geomagnetic storms can affect radio communications and GPS signals, which are essential for navigation, especially on routes crossing the polar regions, where the effects are more severe.

Astronauts and spacecraft also face risks, because additional radiation during these events can be harmful to both equipment and human health (there, the Earth’s magnetic field cannot protect us).