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A “cannibal” solar storm that could produce a spectacular light show in the night sky is on its way toward Earth.
The G2-class geomagnetic storm was spotted by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a spacecraft orbiting between the Earth and the Sun to monitor solar activity.
The official SOHO Twitter account predicted that the storm could produce an auroral splay, bringing the Northern Lights as far south as Scotland and Northern Ireland.
”Yet another spectacular halo CME [coronal mass ejection] directed towards Earth," they wrote.
”Let's hope that this one will produce more impressive aurorae than the Halloween storm."
The storm is described as a “cannibal” because it ate one of its own kind. The fast-moving coronal mass ejection caught up with a series of smaller ones and absorbed them.
The oncoming CME contains tangled magnetic fields and compressed plasmas that are particularly good at creating geomagnetic storms.
A similar coronal mass ejection on Halloween night promised a spectacular light show that didn’t materialise.
NASA finds spot on Sun's surface that could grow into huge solar flare within days
Sky-watchers were disappointed when the hope of seeing the Northern Lights “as far south as Suffolk” turned out to be a damp squib.
On Twitter, space weather physicist Dr Tamitha Skov wrote that this week’s chances of an aurora were better than the late October ones: "Solar Do-Over! Once again an Earth-directed #solarstorm is on its way.
"NASA model predicts impact early November 4. #NOAA modelling of an earlier eruption hints this new event will catch up to the earlier one, making this a 1,2-punch! So better odds for #aurora than on Halloween!"
The Sun’s “weather” goes though a roughly 11-year cycle. The periodic variation in sunspot activity has been recorded since the Seventeenth Century and this current wave – Cycle 25 – is set to peak between 2023 and 2026.
At their most extreme, geomagnetic storms can produce dramatic effects here on Earth. In September 1859, a massive plume of solar plasma caused a phenomenon known as The Carrington Event which caused massive damage to the fledgling telegraph network in Europe and North America.
When the storm was at its peak the Northern Lights were so bright that people across the northeastern US reported being able to read their newspapers at night without a lamp.
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