Last night, the UK was treated to a stunning display of the Northern Lights, from north Wales to Kent.

Stunning pictures captured the aurora borealis across the UK, filling the sky with pink and green hues.

The northern lights are a series of colourful lights that appear in the sky as swirls, streamers, or curtains. They can be green, blue, pink, or violet. 

The most impressive auroras occur when the Sun emits really large clouds of particles called "coronal mass ejections".

The Northern Lights have been seen all across the UK in 2024.

This is thanks to the biggest geomagnetic storm since 2003, according to Sean Elvidge, a professor in space environment at the University of Birmingham.

The 2024 storm has been so powerful that, as well as lighting up the night sky, it interfered with satellites and power grids around the world.

 

 

Will we see the Northern Lights tonight?

But don’t get complacent about seeing the aurora borealis, because it’s hard to tell when the ‘solar maximum’ will end and solar activity will start to decrease again.

And it looks like the chances of seeing the Northern Lights will be getting much slimmer tonight.

The Met Office’s latest space weather forecast says: "The chances of aurora remain initially, though gradually easing through October 11, becoming increasingly confined to far northern geomagnetic latitudes by October 13.’

On top of that, the atmospheric weather forecast says we’ll see "rain across Scotland and Northern Ireland becoming more widespread through the night, although far north clearer with the odd wintry shower" – which doesn’t sound promising for the required conditions.