Auroras could light up the skies on Christmas, thanks to a powerful solar flare heading toward Earth

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A display of auroras is expected to light up the skies on Christmas Day, thanks to a powerful M8.9 solar flare enroute to Earth.

Northern lights over snowy trees reflected in a lake
Northern lights could light up the skies over the upper Midwest, if an incoming coronal mass ejection materializes. (Image credit: Xuanyu Han/Getty Images)

This Christmas Day, the skies may add to the festive cheer with a display of auroras, thanks to a blob of charged particles enroute to deliver a "glancing blow" to our planet following a powerful M8.9 solar flare.

High-latitude areas in the U.S., including northern Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota, may witness auroral displays late on Wednesday (Dec. 25), according to geomagnetic storm watch issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Active sun

Shortly after erupting from the sun, the latest M8.9 flare caused a temporary disturbance in radio signals over Africa and the South Atlantic Ocean that lasted about 15 minutes, NOAA said. Three more M-class flares blasted into space today (Dec. 24) by the same sunspot region led to similarly minor radio blackouts over Fiji and Madagascar.

The flare comes during a period of increased turbulence on the sun, which recently reached the peak of an 11-year natural cycle of activity. Scientists have observed more than a dozen sunspot regions puncturing the sun’s surface right now, a harbinger of increased solar activity heading into the New Year.

The latest storm also coincided with NASA's Parker Solar Probe's record-setting closest-ever approach to the sun. Scientists hope a solar flare serendipitously strikes the spacecraft during its close approach, which would give solar scientists close-up data that could help explain how sun's charged particles are accelerated to near-light speeds. But NASA won’t know how the spacecraft fared during the storm until after it comes back online in the new year.

Sharmila Kuthunur
Sharmila Kuthunur
Live Science contributor

Sharmila Kuthunur is an independent space journalist based in Bengaluru, India. Her work has also appeared in Scientific American, Science, Astronomy and Space.com, among other publications. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Northeastern University in Boston. Follow her on BlueSky @skuthunur.bsky.social