Northern Lights - Tonight UK skies set to light up with a dazzling display

The Northern lights spanning the sky over the Shetland Isles

Parts of the UK are set to be illuminated by the Northern Lights tonight thanks to a solar storm according to the Space Weather Prediction Center, maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. On Sunday night dazzling displays could be seen in Scotland, in the north-east of England, Northern Ireland and Ireland. The lights could move even further south tonight if the solar storm erupting on the surface of the Sun intensifies.



WHAT ARE THE NORTHERN LIGHTS?The Northern lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, are caused when eruptions on the Sun throw matter towards Earth causing the matter to glow and creating ethereal displays in the night-time skies. An aurora is common in the high latitude like the Arctic and Antarctic regions.  

The aurora borealis (or the northern lights) is named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction. Discrete aurorae often display magnetic field lines or curtain-like structures, and can change within seconds or glow unchanging for hours, most often in fluorescent green.