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The Northern Lights lit up the night sky with rare sightings across the UK and Europe.
The aurora borealis has been spotted at Whitley Bay on the north-east coast; Essex; Cambridgeshire; and Wokingham in Berkshire.
Kathleen Cunea, from Great Horkesley, Essex, said: “It was absolutely stunning to see.”
Met Office spokesman Stephen Dixon said Friday that the Northern Lights were likely to be seen.
He said: “Although the shorter nights will limit the window of visibility, there is a good chance of seeing the aurora, especially on Friday night and particularly in Scotland, Ireland and parts of northern England and Wales.
“There may even be visibility further south if you have the right equipment.
“These conditions could continue into Saturday night, but we still need to work out some details on exactly where that will be.”
Dixon said the combination of clear skies and increased activity from the sun reaching Earth will improve the chances of seeing the display.
Auroras occur when charged particles collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles.
In the Northern Hemisphere, most of this activity takes place within a band known as the auroral oval, covering latitudes between 60 and 75 degrees.
When activity is strong, this expands to cover a larger area – which is why displays can sometimes be seen as far south as the UK.
In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning on Friday. He warned operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft to take precautions. NOAA says the storm could produce northern lights as far south as Alabama and northern California.
“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenberg, a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Center. “This is truly the gift of space weather – the aurora borealis.”
Steenberg and his colleagues said the best views of the aurora can be obtained from phone cameras, which are better at picking up light than the naked eye.
Even when a storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers can be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigational satellites that any disruptions shouldn’t last long, Steenberg said.
The flares appear to be associated with a sunspot that is 16 times the diameter of Earth, according to NOAA. It’s all part of solar activity, which intensifies as the sun nears the peak of its 11-year cycle.
NASA said the storm posed no serious threat to the seven astronauts aboard International space station. The biggest concern was increased radiation levels, and the crew could move to a more shielded part of the station if needed, according to Steenberg.
The increased radiation could also endanger some of NASA’s science satellites. The highly sensitive instruments will be turned off if necessary to avoid damage, said Antti Pulkinen, director of the space agency’s heliophysics division. Several sun-focused spacecraft watched all the action.
“These are exactly the things we want to monitor,” Pulkinen said.
With PA Media and the Associated Press
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