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Northern Lights may be visible (again) in Indiana Friday & Saturday evening

Northern Lights may be visible (again) in Indiana Friday & Saturday evening
Posted at 6:19 PM, Sep 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-08 18:20:51-04

INDIANAPOLIS -- It's a rare treat for Hoosiers to have a chance to see the Northern lights, but twice in one week is even rarer. 

Because of a couple of massive solar storms earlier this week, the Northern Lights may AGAIN be visible as far south as Kentucky Friday evening. 

The lights were visible both Wednesday and Thursday this week and may again be visible for much of the mid-Atlantic again Friday, according to NASA Space Weather experts. 

Hoosiers in parts of northern Indiana had a rare chance earlier this week to view the aurora after a solar flare on Monday and another one Wednesday means we have even more chances this week on Friday and Saturday according to according to spaceweather.com.

The flare that caused Wednesday's Aurora was classified as an M5 flare, whereas the most recent flare is classified as an X9.3 - the largest seen since 2005. Flares are ranked on a scale of five letter groups with M being the second largest and X flares being ten times larger. 

Huge solar flare recorded by NASA on September 6

The Aurora Borealis is caused by charged particles emitted from the sun during a coronal mass ejection (CME or Solar Flare) interacting with the earth's upper atmosphere.

Typically auroras are limited to the northern hemisphere but the strength of this week's CMEs have made auroras occur much further south. 

The auroras should continue through Friday night and some northern locations have a 90 percent likelihood of seeing them. 

NOAA's aurora predictions for Friday night 

The best chance to view the Aurora Borealis will be well after dark. 

A Geomagnetic Storm Watch is in effect through September 9th. 

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