{"id":418160,"date":"2026-04-26T08:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418160\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:52:10","slug":"northern-lights-may-be-visible-from-ireland-amid-huge-solar-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418160\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern lights may be visible from Ireland amid huge solar storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The northern lights may be visible from Ireland over the next couple of days as a powerful solar storm hits our planet.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, five M-class solar flares hit the sun before a rarer X2.4-class event followed on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>This high-level <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/2025\/04\/16\/news\/real-life\/northern-lights-ireland-visible\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">solar activity<\/a> is an eruption of electromagnetic radiation in the sun\u2019s atmosphere, caused by twisted magnetic fields.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/northern-lights-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1206351\"  \/>The northern lights may be visible from Ireland over the next couple of days. Pic: ProPIC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Solar flares typically sit above sunspots, which are cooler, darker regions of the sun\u2019s surface that form when clumps of its magnetic field well up.<\/p>\n<p>While the effects of the activity are too early to predict, NASA\u2019s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory tracked a cloud of super-charged particles, known as a CME, travelling in the direction of Earth.<\/p>\n<p>During a CME, the particles leave the solar surface and travel across the solar system at a much slower speed than the radiation from a solar flare.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/northern-lights-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1206350\"  \/>The charged particles could mean a great view of the northern lights. Pic: Gregory Clarke\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>NASA also saw a comet, C\/2025 R3 (Pan-STARRS), which is due to get closest to the sun on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a G1-class geomagnetic storm is possible on Sunday if the CME grazes Earth\u2019s magnetic field, according to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/spaceweather.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Spaceweather.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This was also forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and while solar flares don\u2019t cause auroras, the charged particles could mean a great view of the northern lights.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/aurora-borealis-2025-3.jpg\" alt=\"Pic: Graham Hull\/X\" class=\"wp-image-1709646\"  \/>Irish stargazers will be hoping to get a look at the aurora borealis on Sunday night. Pic: Graham Hull\/X<\/p>\n<p>They are caused by solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles flowing from the sun that interacts with Earth\u2019s magnetic field.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While most of these get deflected, some particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms high in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>This leads to excited gases releasing energy as <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/2025\/12\/04\/lifestyle\/aer-lingus-northern-lights-tromso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shimmering light<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Irish stargazers will be hoping to get a look at the aurora borealis on Sunday night, though it is notoriously difficult to predict.<\/p>\n<p>The NOAA has a 30-minute <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swpc.noaa.gov\/products\/aurora-30-minute-forecast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">aurora forecast<\/a>, which tracks the visibility of the lights in real time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The northern lights may be visible from Ireland over the next couple of days as a powerful solar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-418160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}