Northern lights are projected across the Northern U.S. and Europe tonight as Earth gets hit by a strong solar eruption.

Extremely active sunspot AR3664 blasted a major X8.7-class solar flare. The sunspot was behind the incredible geomagnetic storms that recently bathed Earth in auroras. Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: NASA / SDO and the AIA,

Massive ‘cannibal’ solar storm headed towards Earth could make Northern Lights visible further south - Experts predict auroras will be visible as far south as central England and Wales

“The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on June 3, peaking at 7:28 a.m. ET,” NASA, the federal body constantly watching the sun through its Solar Dynamics Observatory, said. The observatory captured an image of the event now released to the public.

NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission captured an X1.1-class solar flare. See time-lapse footage of the blast that caused "a strong shortwave radio blackout over South America," according to Space Weather.

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare that peaked at 7:28 a.m. ET on June 3. The flare was classified as an X1.0, with X-class indicating the most intense flares and the number specifying its strength, according to an announcement from NASA.

A string of solar flares over the past two days has disrupted high-frequency radio communications across parts of Earth, and three coronal mass ejections now heading toward the planet are expected to collide with its magnetic field on June 4 and 5.