Auroras are going OFF today! Here's a clip of the blast that started it, plus pics #aurorawatch

The Twitterverse is alive with aurora sightings today - across Canada, the UK, Scandanavia and more. The Aurora Australis was also supposed to be visible from southern parts of Australia overnight, but heavy cloud prevented confirming this. Maybe tonight?

It's all come about because of a massive Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun on Friday afternoon. That's how long it takes for the blast to get to us - if it is pointed the right way, which this one clearly was. Here's video of the CME from NASA:



In Sweden's Lapland, there is an aurora observatory, and they have a live webcam. Here are some screengrabs from it:

Here's another view of the flare from the Solar Dynamics Observatory: