Remember last May when the northern lights could be seen as far south as Mississippi?
If you missed that light show, never fear, the sun just spit some more fire at us, which means the skies are looking to be very pretty over the next few days.
Here's what our cameras pointing at the sun saw on July 27.
That flare is aimed right at us!
Considering the last solar storm messed with Earth's satellite networks, we might be facing some trouble with this one too.
Satellites and space debris objects in low Earth orbit — the region of space up to an altitude of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) — were sinking toward the planet at the speed of 590 feet (180 meters) per day during the four-day storm.
To make up for the loss of altitude, thousands of spacecraft began firing their thrusters at the same time to climb back up. That mass movement, the authors of the paper point out, could have led to dangerous situations because collision avoidance systems didn't have time to calculate the satellites' changing paths.
However, space forecasters are also calling for a northern lights display as far south as the mid latitudes from July 30-Aug 1.
(That's the green part on the map.)
Another view:
So, you'll at least have something pretty to look at if all our communications go down!
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