A couple nights ago, in some parts of the upper Midwest of Wisconsin, Northern Lights were spotted by sky watchers. People got their best views in Newport State Park, Ellison Bay, Harrington State Park, and Parnell Tower. Many even saw these lights across the United States. If you’ve never seen anything like Northern Lights, or even heard of them, this is a brief guide of what they are and when you may be able to see them again.

Named by the famous Galileo Galilei, the Aurora Borealis, commonly known as Northern Lights, glimpses are able to be caught, a mass of the sun’s corona’s particles get ejected with speeds up to 45 million miles per hour by the sun’s solar wind and blast into Earth’s atmosphere. These particles react to our planet’s magnetic field, and cause the creation of northern lights in the sky. Usually, Northern Lights can be found between 65 and 70 degrees of latitude (Canada, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Alaska, Finland, etcetera). Given the colors, oxygen brings red (60 miles high) and green lights (150 miles high), while nitrogen gives off purple (150 miles high) and blue (60 miles high). Northern lights are always occurring, so you could see them whenever, but it really just depends on where you are and whether the time is right or not.

Despite these numbers and locations, you can still see the lights as south as Cuba to Mexico. Even in outer space, you can see them! The Northern Lights can reach up to 370 miles up in space. Our planet, though, isn’t the only one with Aurora Borealis, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and even Uranus also have a visible sight of these lights. The northern lights also have myths people talk about, such as in Norway, the Valkyries cause the lights while they ride in the sky in their armor. Hopefully one day, you can catch the northern lights even in Long Island.