The Northern Lights could put on quite show for skygazers in the Northern Hemisphere Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Arctic sky watchers could get a light show for Valentine’s Day,” officials at spaceweather.com said.
The intense auroras are said to be caused by a recent solar flare, a powerful burst of energy that erupted from our sun. Officials logged the solar flare on Saturday at 10:48 a.m. EST and classified it as an X1.1. flare, the most intense class of flares.
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“Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on Feb. 14-15 when one or more CMEs could deliver glancing blows to Earth’s magnetic field,” spaceweather.com officials said.
CMEs, or coronal mass ejections, are large bubbles of radiation and particles from the sun. According to NASA, CMEs and solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system.
Due to Saturday’s solar flare, one or more CMEs were released from the sun and are expected to strike our planet’s upper atmosphere on Feb. 14 and 15.
The CMEs may interact with Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in even brighter Northern Lights, or auroras, on the night of Valentine’s Day.