After our sun belched forth a cloud of plasma in a recent solar flare, we Earthlings were able to see the results in the form of beautiful northern lights which danced above the mountains around Metro Vancouver.
The solar flare took place Saturday, Oct. 9 but only reached Earth the evening of Oct. 11, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. With the sun being 149.29 million kilometres away, the plasma travelled at a blistering 3,110,210 km/h, or roughly 0.29 per cent the speed of the light to get here. When it did though, Vancouverites were ready with their cameras.