Photographer Paul Cyr captured the aurora borealis brightening the sky over Center Hill in the Aroostook County town of Easton just after 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Solar storms of a magnitude unseen in the last decade have been raging in space for the past week, according to officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

Northern lights — many of them as dramatic and spectacular as the ones seen here — result when radiation from these solar flares hits the Earth’s magnetic field.

But there’s a downside too; increased geomagnetic storm activity can have a disruptive effect on communication and navigational satellites orbiting the planet.