Northern Lights arrive in Britain as a result of a extreme geomagnetic storm

Hundreds of Brits have reported seeing the Northern Lights from their windows tonight thanks to a severe geomagnetic storm that threatens to disrupt the world’s power grids. 

Pictures shared on social media show large swathes of the country draped in a spectacular light display. 

Scientists previously raised concerns that the geomagnetic storm – the first to strike Earth in almost 20 years – has the power to disrupt power grids, mobile networks and GPS satellites.

The Northern Lights in North London this evening 

 The brilliant colours of the aurora are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun colliding with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Usually, the sun only ejects enough plasma to trigger lights around the poles where the magnetic fields are at their strongest.

But during events called ‘coronal mass ejections’ the sun releases huge waves of plasma from its corona – the sun’s outermost layer.

This is a breaking news story – more to follow