The Met Office has issued a warning saying that the Northern Lights might be visible tonight (Thursday, October 10). The Exeter-based weather experts have taken to social media to say that they could be visible across the country.
The Met Office said a 'coronal mass ejection from the sun' is heading towards the earth, making the phenomenon visible for much of the UK. According to the Space Weather Prediction Centre, a coronal mass ejection is a large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona.
Although usually more visible in the north of the country, the lights could also be visible in the south of the UK. And it is not just tongiht either, with the experts predicting that the aurora could be seen 'in the coming nights'.
A graphic accompanying their post on X suggested the lights will be most prominent across Scotland at around 1am on Friday, and again at around 11pm on Friday (October 11). "Look north in the coming nights and you may spot the #NorthernLights," the tweet said. "A coronal mass ejection from the sun is earth bound and whilst there's some uncertainty on its arrival time, sightings of the #aurora are likely in northern areas with a slight chance in the south too."
According to the Met Office website: "The northern lights (also known as aurora borealis) appear as large areas of colour including pale green, pink, shades of red, yellow, blue and violet in the direction due north.
"The northern lights are best seen in darkness, away from any light pollution. The lights generally extend from 50 miles to as high as 400 miles above the Earth's surface.
"The northern lights occur as a consequence of solar activity and result from collisions of charged particles in the solar wind colliding with molecules in the Earth's upper atmosphere."