Possible aurora show - Another geomagnetic storm for Earth?

The sun just spewed another coronal mass ejection towards the planet. Although the path of impact is not direct, it is just strong enough to possibly cause a minor geomagnetic storm.

We're officially in the solar maximum, the climax of the 11-year solar cycle in which the sun has many sunspots. We'll be in the cycle for about 2 to 3 years. There will be plenty of northern lights shows to come. The next one may just occur Friday night.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm watch. Although this storm isn't expected to be a strong one, it still has the potential to disrupt electronics and communications as well as cause auroras to show up in the night sky.

Most of the latest solar activity has been coming from very large sunspots - larger than our planet! The largest of the sunspots, AR13664, is 14 times the size of Earth! This is the largest sunspot NASA has discovered in almost a decade.

As for tonight's possible show, the northern-most latitudes have the best potential to see the auroras with this latest storm watch.