One of nature's most beautiful phenomena will be visible to the naked eye in the sky over Ireland for the next few nights.
Astronomy Ireland says the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, will appear as flickering curtains of dancing greenish-yellow light across the sky. These bands may, depending on conditions, turn red at their tops and along their lower edges.
They will be most visible in the north of the country.
The spectacle is the result of two massive explosions on the Sun that sent a huge cloud of radiation, or solar wind, towards our planet at speeds ranging from 300 to over 1000 km per second.
The Earth is protected from this by the upper atmosphere. However, the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field results in huge bands of shimmering light being visible.
The chairman of Astronomy Ireland, David Moore, said it was very rare to be able to predict the exact timing of the appearance of aurorae. "But we are fairly confident given the pictures from space that show a huge glowing ring of radiation thousands of miles across above the Earth's northern hemisphere," he said.
"It's really quite a scary sight".
Astronomy Ireland is holding a special event tomorrow night in Roundwood, Co Wicklow, an area where the skies are extremely dark.
A number of telescopes will be set up for improved viewing.