On the night from the 2nd to the 3rd of April the residents of the Leningrad Region became witnesses of the natural phenomenon, unusual for their region - aurora Polaris, which they could watch in the north part of the sky. The participants of the social net «The aurora hunters» spread on the Internet the photos of what they had seen. Some of the photos were got at a latitude of about 60 degrees. How could that happen that a phenomenon, usual for high latitudes, were seen in the middle latitudes?
«The fact is that appearing of the lights is determined by the state of the magnetic field of the Earth and streams of charged particles passing from the Sun (the solar wind), - the Fellow of the Polar Geophysical Institute Sergey Chernous tells. – If there are perturbations on the Sun, the solar wind increases, the magnetic field changes, and these cosmic phenomena we can observe in the polar atmosphere as on the TV-Screen, in the form of auroras. They surround the Magnetic Poles with the figures, resembling ellipse. The stronger the solar wind, the more oval expands and moves toward the equator. Thus, the polar lights could be seen in the Leningrad Region».
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The geographical position of the auroras` oval depending on the condition of the Earth's magnetic field first was determined by the Soviet scientists. The fellow of the Polar Geophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Henry Starkov proposed a mathematical model of this phenomenon more than 20 years ago. His work became the basis for the modern methods of prognostication.
Bright flashes of Aurora on the 2nd-3rd of April were predicted by the scientists of the Polar Geophysical Institute. Its fellow, one of the authors of the model of the forecast, Sergey Chernous, and Valentin Jiganov from the Kolsky Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences managed to calculate the best time and place of the shooting of the unique natural phenomenon. Valentin Jiganov went to the region of the Kuelptor Mountain in Hibiny with the special photographic equipment. The results of this «hunting» you can see on the website of the Russian Geographical Society.
The work is done with the support of Murmansk branch of the Russian Geographical Society.