Status: 02/27/2023 10:47 a.m
Northern lights made the night sky of Germany shine. The rare celestial spectacle was particularly easy to see in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. It was created by good luck – thanks to the sun.
Purple, red and green: the sky shone in these colors in many parts of Germany late on Sunday evening.
The natural spectacle could be seen in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Hesse, says Monika Staesche, director of the Berlin planetarium. The lights could be seen particularly well in dark places in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. In brightly lit cities such as Berlin or Hamburg, it is unlikely to catch a glimpse.
An NDR listener from Eckernförde in Schleswig-Holstein said on the radio that she had gone to the beach in the evening because her son had sent pictures of the northern lights in Denmark via cell phone. She too was able to marvel at the colorful sky. “It was crazy, I can’t even describe it. It was only just visible to us at first. As a shimmer… green. But then it was great to see it on the cell phone, on the camera,” he said the listener.
Flood of images on social media
Many people shared pictures of the Northern Lights on social media. The postings come from the islands of Rügen, Flensburg or Vechta. The play of colors was so intense that it was sometimes visible to the naked eye, the users write.
Solar storm causes polar lights
Usually, the Northern Lights are only seen in northern Scandinavia or Iceland. In Germany they are rare – because the conditions have to be right.
Solar storms are responsible for the colorful play of colors in the sky, according to Monika Staesche from the Berlin Planetarium. The sun throws electrically charged particles towards the earth. If they then enter the earth’s atmosphere, they glow. The particles need about one and a half to two days to travel the approximately 150 million kilometers between the sun and the earth.