Northern Lights could be seen in Wales tonight after solar explosion

Weather forecasters at the Met Office say the coronal mass ejection (CME) which left the surface of our star on Saturday should start interacting with the planet's atmosphere in the early hours of tomorrow, Wednesday, February 2, and the Northern Lights might be seen in north Wales.

The charged particles are directed by the earth's protective magnetic field onto the planet's poles. The resulting collisions high above the surface cause aurora - and the Northern Lights are a result of those collisions.

The Met Office says the "CME which left the Sun on January 29 has been analysed by our forecasters, who are predicting an arrival at Earth early on February 2.

"The resulting geomagnetic storms bring the potential for aurora sightings as far south as north Norfolk and north Wales, if skies are clear."

They add that northern Scotland will be best placed to see the spectacle.

And while it is an incredible and awe-inspiring occurrence every time, the Northern Lights are occasionally seen over Britain.

The Met Office website says the Northern Lights (also known as Aurora Borealis) appear as large areas of colour including pale green, pink, shades of red, yellow, blue and violet in the direction due north.

During a weak aurora, the colours are very faint and spread out whereas an intense aurora features greater numbers of and brighter colours which can be seen higher in the sky with a distinct arc. The northern lights generally extend from 50 miles to as high as 400 miles above the Earth's surface.

They add: "The northern lights occur as a consequence of solar activity and result from collisions of charged particles in the solar wind colliding with molecules in the Earth's upper atmosphere."

The particles stream away from the Sun at speeds of around 1 million miles per hour.