Strange, Dazzling White Streak Photobombs Rare Auroras Over the U.S.

On the night of Saturday, May 17, skywatchers in parts of the U.S. were treated to a dazzling display of auroras from a surprise geomagnetic storm. But then observers spotted something very weird. A mysterious white streak cut clean across the night sky, leaving many wondering: what the heck was that? On Sunday evening, the skies over Colorado and states farther south lit up with bands of green, blue, and red auroras. The storm was a result of solar flares and a coronal mass ejection (CME)—a massive bubble of coronal plasma and magnetic field ejected from the Sun—that occurred about four days earlier. The CME was initially expected to miss Earth, but a portion of it dealt a glancing blow to our planet’s magnetic field, triggering a geomagnetic storm. But the real weirdness started at around 11:30 p.m. MT on May 17, when a bright white streak lit up the sky. Naturally, people took to social media for answers. Many observers initially thought it might be a strange form of STEVE, a uniq ... Read full article.