Brian Ler on WNYC, and to end the show today, we'll turn to the sky.

Over the weekend, a rare Aurora Borealis made an appearance over New York City. Did you see it? The splashes of pink and

yellow and green were actually the result of a powerful solar storm that slammed into Earth.

Joining us now to discuss how Aurora's happened and to preview some other celestial events

to look forward to this season is Jackie Fahardy,

astrophysicist and science educator at the American Museum of Natural History.

Jackie, thanks for joining us.

Welcome to WNYC.

I am so thrilled to be here, Brian.

And listeners, we can take some of your calls, calling all Aurora Chasers and novice Stargators.

What did you experience over the weekend if you saw it?

212-433, WNYC, 212, 433-962, 9692, whether it's your first Aurora or you travel the world to go see them, what did you see?

212-433, WNYC, 433-9-6-9-2.

You can also ask a question of our guests about celestial viewings.

212, 433-9-6-92, call or text What's an aurora, Jackie? Oh, what is an aurora? That word,

it's such a beautiful word. People name their children, that word. It's such a nice one. And it means

that you get a light show, a celestial light show.

For us, it really means that the sun has sent over some charged particles, some protons,

our way, and they get caught up in our magnetic field, and then they interact with our atmosphere.

So when we say the aurora, we're really talking about the

part that you see with your eye, which is the colorful light show, but it's actually a process as

well that we're getting where the Earth's atmosphere is interacting with a solar storm.

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