Another spectacular sky show coming?

Pictures and videos are still coming in from the spectacular Northern Lights show last Monday night.  The video above is a view of the event from Kansas that night. The show was seen as far south as Georgia and Mississippi.  Now there is news from NASA that suggests another display of the Aurora Borealis could be coming.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has found an enormous sunspot they estimate is nearly three times larger than earth.  SDO first spotted the nearly 25,000 miles wide sunspot yesterday.  NASA says that the largest possible solar flares or X-class flare are possible with this sunspot.  Even amateur astronomers with solar telescopes should be able to spot the sunspot themselves if they look for it over the next few days.

Sunspot AR1339 is expected to produce some tremendous solar flares or large explosions on the surface of the sun.  Flares produce CME's or Coronal Mass Ejections.   These huge storms of charged particles then hurtle off the sun's surface, swept away on the solar wind out into surrounding outer space. If the sun has spun into the right position, those particles can intercept the upper levels of our atmosphere to produce The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis.

The most recent flare was not directed toward earth but future flares could be.   It is difficult to predict the appearance of The Northern Lights but you can sign up for twitter alerts that may give you a heads up.   In the meantime, keep your eyes to the sky the next several nights.