The aurora australis has come back for another showing, coinciding with the reappearance of Matariki in the night sky on Friday.
Kiwis have been sharing their latest shots of the dazzling electromagnetic display, including on the Aurora Australis NZ Facebook page.
An aurora is produced when electrons from space hit Earth's magnetic field, colliding with molecules in the upper atmosphere, which produces stunning multicoloured lights near the Earth's magnetic poles.
In Aotearoa, the further south you are, the more likely you are to see them.
Otago University physicist Professor Craig Rodger told Newshub there were great auroras on Matariki Friday night and Saturday morning across the country.
"A solar tsunami (coronal mass ejection) arrived at the Earth from the Sun about 10pm on Friday night," he said.
"It was predicted to make a moderate geomagnetic storm, but it actually triggered a significant storm. The aurora was quite strong and bright, clearly."
Auroras become visible when the geomagnetic K-index is 5 or above, which indicates there is a geomagnetic storm happening. A reading of 9 indicates the strongest solar storm, while 1 is the calmest.
Prof Rodger said this week's solar tsunami had a K-index reading of 8, at the stronger end of the scale.
"The higher the Kp index, the more likely aurora will be seen," he said.
Back in May, Earth experienced intense auroras due to a series of huge solar flares and coronal mass ejections - essentially when the sun spits out a huge magnetic field and hot plasma.
Kiwis captured stunning photos from Northland all the way to Southland.
Was this similar to May's solar storm?
May's solar storm, now known as the Gannon Storm, was "much bigger" than this week's one, even though they were caused by the same processes, said Prof Rodger.
"If I use the GNS Science magnetic field measurements from near Christchurch I can make a numeric comparison - the mid-May storm was more than 20 times bigger!"
He said the sun is near its solar maximum, a roughly two-year period when the sun is "much more disturbed".
"That causes more solar tsunami to leave the sun - and the impact of the solar tsunami produce a strong bright aurora that is pushed up to NZ from polar latitudes," he added.
Good news - that means Aotearoa is likely to see more aurorae throughout 2024 and 2025.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US said on X that this week's storm had been predicted to last from 2:00pm Friday until 6:00pm Saturday.
