On Tuesday, astronomers watched as a vast ‘bird wing’ eruption sent waves of superheated plasma surging across the sun’s northern hemisphere.
At over 600,000 miles long (one million km), the filament of solar material was more than twice as long as the distance from the Earth to the moon.
Now, scientists predict that part of this filament eruption could hit Earth tomorrow.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, aurora chaser Jure Atanackov predicted that the full force of this eruption could trigger a severe or even extreme geomagnetic storm, the highest level on official rating systems.
Stunning video recorded by NASA’s solar observation satellites shows the moment that filaments of plasma 75 times larger than Earth peeled away from the sun in a pair of sweeping ‘wings’.
Most of the material was shot out of the sun’s north pole, so it will mostly avoid Earth.
However, astronomers say that Earth will probably receive a glancing blow from the wake of the passing storm.
That means there is an increased chance of being able to spot the Northern Lights and a risk of disruption to electrical equipment.