UK could be just days away from more spectacular Northern Lights

The UK could be treated to more Northern Lights soon (Picture: Getty/iStockphoto)

The UK could be in store for more mesmerising aurora as radiation blasted from the Sun supercharges the Northern Lights.

The mega sunspot group that pummelled Earth with solar storms earlier this month has returned, already causing shortwave radio blackouts in Europe and the US.

And while solar flares are hard to predict, experts believe the best time for a repeat of last month’s spectacle will be around June 4 to 6, possibly as late as June 9, when the sunspots are directly facing the planet.

Where they will be visible depends on the strength of the radiation hitting Earth, with Scotland and northern England enjoying the best chance of colourful night skies.

They will also need clear skies to be visible, but luckily the UK is set for a heatwave in June following months of record rainfall.

Last month the sunspots, named AR3664 and 15 times wider than Earth, fired powerful solar flares our way, resulting in dazzling aurora across the UK and Ireland on May 9.

A week later, things got even wilder as AR3664 sent out the strongest solar flare of the current 11-year solar cycle, officially classed as an X8.7-class flare. 

However, the Sun is always slowly spinning, taking 27 Earth days to complete one full rotation. This means shortly after that monster flare, the sunspot group turned away from the planet.

But now they’re back, and seem just as angry as before.

On Monday, a huge solar flare erupted from the Sun (Picture: Nasa)

The Northern Lights, officially known as the aurora borealis, over St Mary’s lighthouse in Whitley Bay (Picture: PA)

The Aurora Borealis, also known as the northern lights, put on a show over Bingham, Nottingham (Picture: Alamy)

Renamed AR3697, the group fired out a major X-class flare on Monday, just before turning to face Earth, and astronomers think there could be plenty more where that came from.

Solar flares fall into one of five categories – A, B, C, M and X, with X being the largest. Each class is then graded on a scale of one to nine. So this month’s X8.7 flare was almost as strong as they come, while an A1.2 is little more than a solar hiccup.

Monday’s flare was an X2.9, and was so powerful it caused shortwave radio blackouts in East Asia.

Solar flares are massive bursts of radiation from the electromagnetic spectrum, including X-rays and UV radiation. When they smash into Earth, they give an electrical charge to particles in the atmosphere, getting them all excited and sending them zooming around. 

This makes it harder for shortwave radio signals to travel through the ionosphere, because they keep bashing into them, scrambling the signals or absorbing them completely.

But it is also this phenomenon that helps create the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.

The Northern Lights over Crosby beach, Liverpool (Picture: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

A view of the lights at Minster on Sea, Kent (Picture: Alamy)

Alongside solar flares, sunspots can also emit coronal mass ejections (CEMs), huge burps of solar plasma, as happened on Monday.

While solar flares travel at the speed of light – taking just eight minutes to arrive – CEMs travel much solar, taking a few days.

As the sunspots turn towards Earth, and with the Sun close to its solar maximum – the most active period during its cycle – we can expect more solar fireworks.