strongest solar storm in more than six years is already bombarding Earth with radiation with more to come. flare brings chance to see northern lights

A huge solar flare -- the largest since 2005 -- may increase the chance to see the aurora borealis, aka the northern lights, this week.

The particles from the eruption, which occurred Sunday, began hitting Earth on Tuesday morning.

Michael Bakich, senior editor of Astronomy magazine, said Tuesday this may create displays of the northern lights for several days.

Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., said the best chance of seeing the display will be Tuesday night. To observe the shimmering sheets of light doesn't require a telescope, or even binoculars.

"Go out just after dusk and look to the north," Alan MacRobert, editor at Sky & Telescope magazine, said Tuesday.

The flare is the latest evidence the sun is becoming more active, emerging from a period of several year when there were few sunspots or solar flares to be seen.

The disturbances usually work on an 11-year cycle, with peak activity occurring every 11 years. Chester said in the past few years there's been minimal solar activity.

But there's increasing evidence this is changing.

Bakich said the observatories that watch the sun have seen an increase in prominences in recent week -- the loops and columns of solar matter that can be seen along the sun's edges.

And Chester said there have been two sizeable solar flares this month. The larger one erupted on Earth's surface Sunday.

Chester said the biggest solar flares are given the classification of X. This one is slightly less than that category.

X-rays traveling at the speed of light arrived on Earth eight minutes after the flare appeared, Chester said. There were also proton ejections that can interfere with space satellite electronics, he said.

"The buildup on the outside of satellites IS? like static electricity," he said. "Unless you find a way to disperse them, they can fry electronics."

On Tuesday, the final arrival from the solar glare -- the particles that are part of what's called a coronal mass ejection -- began about 10 a.m., Bakich said.

The particles, while not dangerous to humans, can interfere with some telecommunications and radio systems. Lt. Paul Vance, spokesman for the Connecticut State Police, said Tuesday that because of prior preparations, the state police had not had any communications problems.

Paul Estefan, emergency management director in Danbury, said he was not aware of any communications problems either.

But the planet's magnetic poles pull the coronal mass ejection particles toward the poles. There, they collide with particles in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Those collisions create the lights of the aurora borealis.

Generally, you have to be in the far northern latitudes to see the aurora displays. But after major solar flares, people farther to the south can see them -- sometimes as far south as Arizona.

And Chester said the only way to see them is to go and look.

"It's going to be a clear night," he said Tuesday. "There's a possibility you could see something."

Contact Robert Miller

This handout image provided by NASA, taken Sunday night, Jan. 22, 2012, shows a solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere. Space weather officials say the strongest solar storm in more than six years is already bombarding Earth with radiation with more to come. The Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado observed a flare Sunday night at 11 p.m. EST. Physicist Doug Biesecker said the biggest concern from the speedy eruption is the radiation, which arrived on Earth an hour later. It will likely continue through Wednesday. It's mostly an issue for astronauts' health and satellite disruptions. It can cause communication problems for airplanes that go over the poles. (AP Photo/NASA) Photo: Associated Press / NASA