Out of an "abundance of caution," the station's three Russian cosmonauts were instructed to spend a night in the ISS laboratory module.

The British Geological Society is warning that the Earth is about to get hit by the most powerful solar storm in over two decades.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - An uptick in strong solar activity could create a severe solar storm, bringing the Northern Lights as far south as Alabama and northern California. The Sun produced an X5.1 flare early Tuesday morning, one of the strongest of the solar cycle.

Millions across the U.S. and Europe witnessed rare, colorful displays of the northern lights on Tuesday and Wednesday after three bursts of plasma from the Sun triggered a powerful geomagnetic storm.

The declaration came on Wednesday, December 21, after NASA failed to make contact with the lander across two consecutive attempts, leading the mission team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to conclude that InSight’s solar-powered batteries had run out of energy, a state referred to as “dead bus.”

The sun has burped out bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections that could reach Earth Tuesday night. Forecasters said the vibrant displays could be visible across much of the northern U.S.

Increased solar activity causes auroras that dance around Earth’s poles, known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and southern lights, or aurora australis. When the energized particles from coronal mass ejections reach Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored lights in the sky.

A geomagnetic storm on Earth triggered by a large burst of solar radiation has temporarily grounded a Blue Origin rocket carrying twin NASA satellites built to measure space weather on Mars.