Photos show the northern lights in the Philadelphia region

The Northern Lights were visible across the Philadelphia region Thursday evening as scores of local residents took photos of the historic event.

The lights became visible around Philly on Thursday evening Central Pennsylvania caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights earlier this week.

On

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute, took a photo of the Aurora Borealis from Wynnefield.

Viewers sent numerous photos of the Northern Lights to CBS News Philadelphia.

What are the Northern Lights?

The Northern Lights are visible when a solar flare ejects large amounts of magnetized plasma, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), into space.

When these CMEs are aimed at Earth, they can create one geomagnetic stormwhich, according to NASA, causes a major disruption in our magnetic field. These storms produce the Northern Lights, but can also cause power outages and sometimes radio outages.

Fortunately, the Philadelphia region was in the line of sight of the Northern Lights on Thursday evening. Earlier this year, Philadelphia was unlucky when the region had a chance to see the Northern Lights in May.

If you live in the city of Philadelphia, you most likely weren’t able to see the lights on Thursday evening.