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Photo: Cass Glendinning.

The Northern Lights of West Kelowna.

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In case you missed it personally, bright images of dancing lights have probably infiltrated your social media feeds, illuminating a not-so-secret event from nights past.

A swath of cities in BC got another chance to see the Northern Lights after a geomagnetic storm brought the Northern Lights further south.

The Canadian Space Agency explained that the apparently supernatural explosions of color that occur are caused by the sun launching charged particles (electrons and protons) into space, which is called the solar wind. Earth’s magnetic field forms an invisible shield that redirects the solar wind around our planet.

“As Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the solar wind, magnetic field lines are dragged and stretched. They recoil like a rubber band, launching charged particles toward the Earth’s surface along magnetic field lines,” the agency said.

The Canadian Space Agency explains that auroras occur when these charged particles launched along Earth’s magnetic field collide with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere.

These collisions produce small flashes that fill the sky with colored light. This light works in the same way as a neon lamp or an old cathode ray tube television set. As billions of flashes occur in sequence, the auroras appear to move or “dance” across the sky.

Auroras can be seen almost every night in the northern sky from August to May.

We see auroras in northern Canada because of the way space connects to the ground. The part of space where most of the “dragging, stretching, and snapping” occurs is connected by magnetic fields to the north and south ends of the Earth. Due to the shape of Earth’s magnetic field, these magnetic field lines create two aurora ovals around the North and South Poles.