Earth experienced its largest and most powerful solar storm in more than two decades on Tuesday night, triggering stunning auroral displays, also known as the Northern Lights, visible far beyond their usual polar regions.
According to Space.com, the Sun caused an intense X-class solar flare, the strongest in 23 years, which sent a fast coronal mass ejection (CME) hurtling toward Earth. The CME slammed into Earth’s magnetic field at around 2.38 pm EST (1938 GMT) on January 19, escalating geomagnetic conditions to G4, or “severe”, storm levels, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Centre (SWPC) reported.
The CME was launched on January 18 during a powerful X1.9 solar flare, giving it little time to cross the roughly 91 million miles (147 million km) between the Sun and Earth.
After the initial impact, the passage of the CME kept Earth’s magnetic field in a highly disturbed state for several hours. According to the UK Met Office, this prolonged disturbance caused repeated formations of auroral activity as storm intensity rapidly rose and fell throughout the night.
Northern Lights were reported across California, Greenland, Austria, Germany, and several other regions. In the United States, auroras were spotted as far south as Southern California, which is a rare occurrence.
Social media platforms are flooded with photos and videos of the glowing skies from places including Alaska, San Francisco, Chicago, and other cities.
Watch here:
I thought this was Ai but it’s not.
Yesterday – Northern Lights aka Aurora Borealis over Stonehenge, England.
Simply unbelievable.
Truth truly is stranger than fiction. pic.twitter.com/8jlRqBSKWj— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 20, 2026
Aurora borealis was seen around the world last night — all because of an extremely powerful solar flare
On Sunday, the first major solar flare of the year occurred — an X1.95-class event.
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A cloud of charged particles reached Earth in less than 24 hours.
On the night of January… pic.twitter.com/5tQ1XZQfEg
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 20, 2026
Aurores boréales sur la côte de granit rose – 20 janvier 2026#auroresboreales #bretagne pic.twitter.com/xeOsws6MmF
— Mathieu Rivrin – Photographies (@mathieurivrin) January 20, 2026
The aurora is not always visible to the naked eye and can only be seen with specialist camera equipment; however, the latest event was strong enough to be seen by anyone looking up to the sky.
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