A “severe” solar storm has made the Northern Lights visible in the US much further south than normal, creating a stunning display of hues across the eastern US on Thursday evening.

Pink, purple and green skies were seen from Maine to New York, Washington, DC and beyond as the sun set.

However, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the radiant storm has the potential to disrupt modern technology.

A fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) – a powerful burst of magnetized plasma from the Sun’s corona – erupted from the Sun on Tuesday evening, prompting NOAA’s Space Prediction Center to issue a rare G4 geomagnetic storm watch, indicating ‘ harmful consequences’. to critical technology and potential widespread voltage regulation problems, NOAA said.

According to NOAA, the CME produced a moderate solar storm here on Earth on Thursday and Friday.

A solar or geomagnetic storm forms when the charged particles in the solar wind interact with Earth’s magnetic field, causing a significant disturbance, according to NASA.

One of the most common manifestations of a CME’s impact on Earth is the emergence of Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. The interaction between the CME and Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, creates ribbons of light in the far northern sky that glow green, pink and other colors

The stronger the solar storm, the further south the Northern Lights can be seen. But the further south you go, the more reddish hue you see instead of green, because the curvature of the Earth causes the particles higher in the atmosphere to interact with each other.

The Northern Lights were visible across much of the northern half of the U.S. on Thursday and could extend as far south as Alabama to Northern California, according to NOAA.

NOAA ranks geomagnetic storms on a five-point scale, with those rated G5 being the strongest and capable of causing widespread voltage regulation problems that could lead to power outages or even the complete collapse of some electrical grid systems. In this scenario, auroras could potentially be seen as far south as Florida and south Texas.

According to NOAA, intense geomagnetic storms can also bombard Earth with subatomic particles, potentially disrupting navigation systems by disrupting radio and GPS signals and power grids.

Geomagnetic storms can also add energy to currents in the Earth’s magnetic field, which can increase the density distribution in the upper atmosphere and cause additional drag for satellites in low orbit.

Daily life is generally not seriously affected, and power grids are equipped to handle minor disruptions from abnormal activity on power lines, Shawn Dahl, coordinator of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told ABC News earlier this year.

Last month, the Northern Lights display extended into southern Arizona, Mississippi and Texas. Earlier this week, the Aurora Borealis was seen in Alaska.

This busy series of Northern Lights activity will soon reach a peak as the sun reaches its maximum solar phase in the coming months.

Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic field reaches its solar maximum, when the number of solar flares is highest, according to NOAA.

Earth is currently approaching the peak of solar cycle 25, when more sunspots with intense magnetic activity are expected.

Impactful space weather events are possible throughout 2024, with the current cycle expected to peak between November 2024 and March 2026, according to NOAA.