Northern Lights could be visible in ALL of Britain tonight (including ... trends now
All of Britain could get a spectacular glimpse of the Northern Lights tonight thanks to a massive solar storm which threatens to cause chaos around the world.
Scientists fear the 'severe' geomagnetic storm – the first to strike Earth in almost 20 years – has the power to disrupt power grids, mobile networks and GPS satellites.
The unusual event, occurring deep in outer space, will also drape a huge portion of the country in a spectacular circle of light (an 'aurora').
Stargazers as far south as Cornwall could be in for a glimpse, the Met Office said.
After a series of solar flares on Wednesday, multiple eruptions of solar radiation have now combined into a single wave due to hit Earth tonight.
The Northern Lights may be visible over large parts of the UK tonight as a massive solar storm hits Earth. The red regions of this map show predictions of where the aurora will be most intense
The Northern Lights have been triggered by a massive solar flare, seen in the bottom right of this image, which has swept up a number of other waves of ejected solar material into a single burst
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World told to brace for 'severe geomagnetic storm' today - the first in nearly 20 years - which could bring chaos to mobile phone networks, GPS satellites and power grids
The brilliant colours of the aurora are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun colliding with the Earth's magnetic field.
Usually, the sun only ejects enough plasma to trigger lights around the poles where the magnetic fields are at their strongest.
But during events called 'coronal mass ejections' the sun releases huge waves of plasma from its corona - the sun's outermost layer.
On Thursday, NOAA issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch for the first time since January 2005.
Throughout Wednesday and Thursday, a sunspot 16 times the diameter of Earth released multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the planet's direction.
However, one strong flare released on Thursday has proven to be particularly fast and is now expected to 'sweep up' all of the radiation into a single wave.
As the solar storm hits the Earth tonight, the charged particles will interact with the planet's magnetic field and create light. In some cases, these lights can be visible over the south of England as shown in this 2024 picture of Stonehenge
While this might sound ominous, this is actually great news for stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Met Office says: 'Where skies are clear and provided dark enough skies, sightings are expected to develop following the CME arrival across the northern half of the UK.'
They add that there is 'a chance that aurora may become visible to all parts of the UK and similar geomagnetic latitudes'.
Increased auroral activity should persist over the weekend into Sunday night and potentially into next week due to a chance of more CMEs arriving in the coming days.
Met Office Space Weather Manager Krista Hammond told MailOnline: 'While short nights at this time of year will limit the visibility window, if conditions are right there's a good chance of sightings on Friday night.
'Aurora visibility may persist through Saturday night, but as it stands this is likely to be less widespread than on Friday night with northern parts of the UK most likely to continue to have the best viewing potential.'
Weather conditions tonight should also give plenty of places a decent chance of seeing the aurora.
By this evening, most of the UK should avoid any rain with clear
