Auroras expected tonight and through the weekend as US braces from 'cannibal' solar eruption

Tonight (Aug. 1) may be the last chance for skywatchers in parts of the U.S. to see the northern lights triggered by a powerful "cannibal" solar eruption that's crackling through our planet's atmosphere.

The northern lights — also known as the aurora borealis — may be visible tonight in parts of northern Washington, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Maine, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center. These are much lower latitudes than the ethereal light shows are typically seen.

Meanwhile, far more intense auroral displays are likely to be visible in northern Canada and Alaska.

To see if a region near you falls within the predicted aurora viewing zone, check out NOAA's latest aurora forecast map below:

Tonight's auroras are the result of several powerful blasts of solar radiation that hit our planet's atmosphere on Tuesday and Wednesday (July 30 and 31). These hot, fast-moving globs of solar particles are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and they occur when tangled magnetic field lines on the sun suddenly snap and then realign, thus flinging wads of plasma into space.

Related: 32 stunning photos of auroras seen from space

When a CME hits Earth, those solar particles skate along our planet's own magnetic field lines toward the North and South Poles, charging up molecules in the atmosphere along the way and causing them to emit energy in the form of colorful light. Stronger CMEs tend to produce more widespread auroras; in May, for example, the most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years produced auroras that were visible as far south as Florida.