00:00You've probably seen pictures of the northern lights this past weekend,
00:03or maybe you even saw them yourselves.
00:05But what causes this phenomenon?
00:07National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space scientist Robert Steenberg has answers.
00:12There are a lot of sunspot regions on the Earth-facing side of the Sun,
00:17and one of these large regions was positioned perfectly.
00:22So, this region has been producing lots of the solar flares, particularly strong ones,
00:28and ejecting blob after blob of plasma of the solar atmosphere aimed at Earth.
00:34Each of these blobs carries a magnetic field, and it can connect to Earth's magnetic field.
00:40And the better it connects, the more energy gets transferred to our atmosphere,
00:44and you get amazing aurora displays.
00:46So, it's not unusual, but what made this one exciting was you had seven in a row.
00:52And it's still producing, too. I mean, it's not done yet.
00:55According to CBS News, the NOAA said Monday that a strong geomagnetic storm warning
00:59would be in effect until 2 a.m. Eastern Time.
01:02And while Steenberg said most people wouldn't be affected by the storms,
01:05they can mess with electronic equipment.
01:08The New York Times reports that the recent activity has caused problems
01:11with some farmers' navigational equipment.
