This coming New Year's Eve, a special kind of fireworks may appear in the night sky—one triggered by nature itself.
According to forecasts from Spaceweather.com, this year could end with "an outburst of auroras."
The website, citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said there is a 60 percent chance that these polar geomagnetic storms will be witnessed in the skies on Dec. 30.
Similarly, there is also a 60 percent chance that the auroras will spill over to New Year's Eve, Dec. 31.
The auroras may be witnessed by individuals who live in high latitudes.
The possible outburst of auroras in the Earth's upper atmosphere is a result of a significant coronal mass ejection—a massive burst of gas and magnetic field from the sun—headed towards Earth.
The ejection occurred after a sunspot cluster erupted last Monday, blasting a flare directly headed towards our planet.
"Sunspot AR2374 has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that could explode again in the hours ahead," Tony Phillips from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) warned prior to the sunspot cluster eruption.
"NOAA forecasters estimate a 55 percent chance of additional M-class flares and a 10 percent chance of X-flares on Dec. 28th," he added, as quoted by Space.com.
In fact, the solar flare initiated a so-called "ionisation event" over the Earth's upper atmosphere, which caused radio blackout in parts of Africa, South America and the south Atlantic Ocean. The blackout was detected by radio operators in the 20MHz frequency range.
Just last month, the U.S. government came up with the very first National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan outlining strategies and actions to help the country better prepare for a massive solar storm, which may cause disastrous disruption of communication lines on Earth.
