Emporia residents — along with many others across the country — were treated to a rare view of the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis.

Geomagnetic storms made the atmospheric phenomenon visible. A large eruption of solar plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun's corona — the outermost layer of its atmosphere — known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), brought highly charged particles that collided with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere, causing those gases to glow and creating the phenomenon of the northern lights.

The storms are expected to continue with another CME expected to hit Earth sometime in the midday or evening on Nov. 12. There is a chance that the lights will once again be visible Wednesday night on the northern horizon of the state.

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