Be sure to look up tonight!
The Northern Lights is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful phenomenon to occur on Earth, commonly only spotted in the Northern hemisphere for the lucky buggers who get to visit beauty spots such as Iceland, Finland and Canada. But now, us Northerners may be able to catch a glimpse of the famous Northern Lights – with sightings reportedly taking place in certain parts of the UK tonight.
Seen across dark skies with no local light pollution, the beautiful aurora borealis could be seen across Scotland and Northern England between 11th and 12th October, as a result of a solar or geomagnetic storm. The beautiful night sky spectacle is caused by a Coronal Mass Ejection, a massive burst of material from the sun which can cause a phenomenon known as a geomagnetic storm, which interferes with the Earth’s magnetic field.
AuroraWatchUK, run by Lancaster University, has also issued an “amber alert” for aurora borealis and predicted “minor geomagnetic activity”. The service provided by space physicists has said the Northern Lights are most likely to be seen between 10pm and midnight because it’s during this period that substorms – the processes behind the lights – are likely to peak.
As always with aurora borealis, it’s not guaranteed that the lights will appear, and the cloud cover could put a spanner in the works, a northerly location with high altitude and low light pollution may increase your chances of spotting it. The Met Office has predicted that tonight the clouds will start to thin and break overnight to give clear spells, “winds falling light and patchy mist and fog forming in places. Minimum temperature 8 °C” meaning stargazers may need to keep their fingers crossed.