Missed Northern Lights? Don't worry, you can sight them really soon here

If you are amongst over 99.5 per cent of the world's population that missed on the northern lights last weekend, then, well, you may bid farewell to your reeling sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Anybody who missed the northern lights last weekend may get another chance to see them. But this expected aurora-filled sky will only likely be seen across the UK.

Northern Lights in the UK: What happened?

Last weekend, aurora borealis, bands of pink and green light lit up the night sky. Rare sightings of Northern Lights made quite a splash across the UK, Europe and as far as Ladakh in India. This came after an "extreme" geomagnetic storm caused them to be more visible, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Krista Hammond, a space weather forecaster at the Met Office, told the British media that the phenomenon was likely to occur more frequently over the next few years – but not uniformly so.

"This is all down to what’s known as the sun’s solar cycle. The sun has a roughly 11-year cycle of activity, and this is from what’s known as solar minimum, which then goes towards solar maximum, and back to solar minimum. And we’re now approaching the solar maximum," she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

"What defines solar maximum is when we see the most number of sunspots on the sun. And it is sunspots that drive what we see as space weather, which is solar flares."

Hammond added: "As we approach solar maximum, it means the frequency that we see these space weather events, which cause the aurora, increases. But this doesn’t actually dictate the magnitude of those events."

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Speaking further she said, "What we saw last weekend was quite a unique situation. We had multiple eruptions of plasma from the sun, which also caught up with each other as it arrived at Earth. And then, when that interacted with the Earth’s upper atmosphere, magnetic field, we viewed it as the aurora."

“And this coincided with clear skies, and it arrived overnight, so we were able to see it really far south. We got sightings across the whole of the UK from last weekend’s event,"Hammond added.

"So, while we would expect to see it more in the way of space weather, whether it’s of the magnitude that allows us to see it at these southern latitudes is, that’s a little bit more tricky to forecast.”

(With inputs from agencies)