A VERY rare opportunity for Isle of Man residents to see the Northern Lights could happen in the next 24 hours.

Unusually large solar storms which flared up on Sunday are shooting tons of plasma directly at the earth, creating the opportunity for the spectacular green curtains of light to be seen from the Isle of Man tonight (Monday) or tomorrow.

In the past the phenomenon has been spotted in the United States as far south as Michigan, which is much further south than the British Isles, so stargazers and astronomers in the Isle of Man are keeping their fingers crossed for clear skies tonight and tomorrow.

Scientists have already predicted that the Northern Lights will be visible much further south than usual and have not ruled out the possibility of being seen from the south of England.

Two enormous explosions on the surface of the sun were witnessed over the weekend and a gigantic cloud of material made up of smashed up atoms and protons is on its way 150 million kms across the solar system and is expected to reach earth today and tomorrow.

The skies tonight are predicted by the Met Office at Ronaldsway to offer good visibility at times, but there will be broken cloud, so it will be a case of fingers crossed for Manx residents. The north west of the Isle of Man statistically has the clearest skies and the best viewing will be away from street lights.

However, such a rare astronomical event is, as always, extremely hard to predict - a bit like the Manx weather. But the scientists are staying “as optimistic as we can be” about seeing the Northern Lights.

A spokesman for the Royal Greenwich Observatory said, “When we have a powerful event like this it makes it more likely to see them further south because the patch of glowing air spreads away from the pole . . . with the Northern Lights regularly being seen in Scotland and cities like Edinburgh, then it will not be such a surprise if they will be seen much further south over the next 24 hours.”