The visible aurora is caused by high energy particles - mainly electrons - that are accelerated and impact the upper atmosphere. These electrons collide and excite atmospheric molecules and atoms, causing them to emit visible light, thus producing the auroral displays.

The example plot above shows the predicted location and extent of the Auroral oval in a similar manner as with the Kp index. Unlike the Kp index, which tries to predict the location of the auroral oval based on magnetic field measurments alone, the oval shown above is predicted using a set of actual electron measurements from the Total Energy Detector (TED) on the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES). This spacecraft measures a "slice" of the particles over 25 minutes during a polar pass, and uses a model taking into account the magnetic local time and magnetic latitude to estimate the total power input from electrons over the entire polar region. The model contains ten levels of auroral activity, derived from hundreds of thousands of auroral particle observations. The size of the particle oval should be related to the Kp index, in that each shows at what latitudes the oval should be visible from depending on your geographic latitude. The POES spacecraft is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Current Auroral Particle conditions

POES Spacecraft

CURRENT CONDITIONS
[CME] [Solar Wind] [Storms] [Auroral Kp] [Particles]