Solar Storms and Auroras: Why the Northern Lights Reached Indian Skies

A strong solar storm on 8 June 2026 made the aurora — popularly called the 'northern lights' — visible from the higher latitudes of India, including parts of Kashmir, the upper Himalayas of Uttarakhand, and the Pangong Tso and Hanle areas of Ladakh. Auroras are normally seen only in regions close to the poles, so their appearance over India is rare and tied to unusually intense solar activity.

Auroras are caused by activity on the Sun. The Sun goes through a magnetic cycle that creates dark patches on its surface called sunspots. Intense bursts of energy from these regions are called solar flares, and they can hurl huge clouds of charged particles into space — an event known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).

When these charged particles reach Earth, most are deflected by the planet's magnetic field, but some are funnelled towards the magnetic poles. There they collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, releasing energy as the glowing curtains of light we see as auroras. A powerful, Earth-directed CME can push this glow to lower latitudes than usual.

These space-weather events are not just beautiful: strong solar storms can disturb satellites, GPS signals, radio communication and power grids. For exam purposes, the key terms are sunspots, the solar cycle, solar flares, Coronal Mass Ejections, the Earth's magnetosphere, and the idea of 'space weather'.