Another solar storm is heading straight for Earth, with fears it could cause some disruption including radio blackouts.
Latest models from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show it surging from the Sun in the direction of Earth on July 14.
Solar storms, at their strongest, can cause blackouts as electricity grids collapse, satellite navigation to go down and other major electrical problems.
READ MORE: Solar storm snowploughs near Earth and could cause power outages
Space weather expert Dr Tamitha Skov wrote on Twitter: “New region 3058 fires a M2.9-flare! It is now the fourth region on the Sun with the X-factor.”
She added that the NOAA “set X-flare risk at 10 percent, but that could rise soon".
Solar flares are classified into A, B, C, M and X - where A is the weakest and X is the strongest - and then given a number denoting the size of the phenomena.
Dr Skov added: “More radio blackouts impact amateur radio operations on Earth’s dayside are likely. GPS users stay vigilant near dawn and dusk.”
In its latest forecast, the US Space Weather Prediction Centre said: “Slight chance for S1 (Minor) solar radiation storms will be present July 17 - 18 mainly due to the favourable location of active regions 3053 and 3055.”
It added: “A slight chance for R3 (Strong) radio blackouts will persist through July 18 given the current active regions on the solar disk.”
As the solar storm heads towards Earth, it could hit anywhere - including Ireland.
It comes near the 22th anniversary of one of the worst solar storms in history, according to NASA.
On July 14, 2000, a solar flare classed by NASA as X5 pushed a large amount of coronal mass ejection towards the earth.
It caused large aurora displays, damaged satellites and caused radio blackouts and communication blockades.
Meanwhile, a new study has found that space weather events could be affecting more than GPS and radios, Express reports.
Physicist Cameron Patterson of Lancaster University explains: “Most of us have at one point heard the dreaded words: ‘your train is delayed due to a signalling failure’.
“While we usually connect these faults to rain, snow and leaves on the line, you may not have considered that the Sun can also cause railway signals to malfunction.”
The electric currents induced by space weather, he explained, can interfere with the normal operation of signalling systems — turning green signals red when there is no train nearby.
In railway networks, the location of trains are tracked by splitting the lines up into small, consecutive segments known as “blocks” that tend to be 0.6–1.2 miles long.
Each block is tied to a signal which flags whether or not a train is currently in that block.
The signals themselves are controlled by relays which detect currents in the system — with the lights turning green if the block is empty and a current is detected, or red if the block is occupied by a train and no current is detected as a result.
By inducing currents in the railway network, solar storms can cause sections of track to be assigned a red light even when not occupied.
Furthermore, the stronger the solar storm, the more signals are likely to malfunction — increasing the resulting delays experienced by travellers on the railway network.
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