Earth has experienced its first “extreme” solar storm since 2003, according to a US agency. As a result, northern lights were observed in Germany on Saturday night.
The solar storm of level five on the five-level scale was observed on Friday evening (local time), said the Space Weather Prediction Center of the United States Meteorological and Oceanographic Administration (NOAA). The solar storm is expected to last through the weekend.
The agency also said GPS, power grids, spacecraft, satellite navigation and other technologies could be affected. In addition to the possible disruptions, solar storms also produce impressive northern lights. These can sometimes be seen significantly further south than the regions where they can normally be observed.
Numerous users shared pictures of the northern lights on online networks. The German Weather Service (DWD) published footage on Saturday night that reportedly showed northern lights over Offenbach and Frankfurt am Main.
According to NOAA, category five, classified as “extreme,” was last reached in October 2003 during the so-called Halloween storms. At that time there were power outages in Sweden and transformers were damaged in South Africa.