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It was a rare cosmic collision — and the sky responded in technicolor.
A rare and rowdy “cannibal” solar eruption slammed into Earth this week, which painted the sky in jaw-dropping color from Scotland to the South Pole.
The freaky phenomenon, known as a cannibal coronal mass ejection (CME), occurred after two solar eruptions decided to merge mid-flight, forming one massive, magnetic monster that socked Earth’s atmosphere on April 15.
The result? A global rave in the sky.
Experts at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center had warned of a G3-level storm for April 16 — but Mother Nature cranked it up to G4 briefly, sending charged particles straight into the history books and triggering wild aurora sightings far from the poles.
In Finland, aurora photographer Austin MacDonald was left speechless.
“I was amazed and almost overwhelmed. Living in Finland, I see auroras pretty often, from small G1 storms to last year’s extreme G5 storm. But last night was something special,” MacDonald told Space.com.
“It came on so fast, and it wasn’t just overhead, it was to the south, north, east, west… It felt like I was standing inside a 360-degree aurora sphere. It just made me feel incredibly small,” he said of the light show, which peaked around 11:45 p.m. local time.
MacDonald — who used to work in meteorology, compared the spectacle to hitting the atmospheric jackpot.
“In many ways, this felt like witnessing the atmospheric equivalent of a perfect storm… You can’t help but feel incredibly lucky to have been there for it,” he told the site.
Photographers around the globe snapped similar otherworldly sights.
In Ireland, Sryan Bruen caught the northern lights flickering above Ballynafagh Church in County Kildare.
Over in the UK, astrophotographer Astro Ben posted on X a timelapse of the aurora pirouetting above his backyard.
Further north in Scotland, Cat Perkinton marveled at the “crazy range of colours in last night’s skies over #Stirling.”
In Germany, the celestial striptease made it down to 49 degrees latitude.
And it wasn’t just the Northern Hemisphere getting lit.
In the Southern Hemisphere, an X user shared a dazzling shot of the aurora australis, writing, “Aurora Australis 17/04/2025 84 % full moon at the zenith and the Lady finally decided to bring out the showgirl… In true style she outshone the moon and gave us all what we were there for—naked eye beams and colour were an exciting finale.”
While the storm is winding down, NOAA says high-latitude auroras are still possible as the Kp index lingers near 4.33 over the next 24 hours.
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