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A gargantuan eruption of plasma on the surface of the sun has caused a celestial tsunami shower of ionized atoms to head straight for the Earth, which scientists expect to arrive at our planet Tuesday night.

Scientists also say there is nothing we can do and the coronal mass ejection will hit our world, illuminating the night sky before a final collision between us and the inevitable geomagnetic storm. "It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time," Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told Space.com.

And besides causing problems with satellites in the way, it should be quite an entertaining show.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which was launched in February and studies space phenomena like this one, and looks into the sun to see how it works. Scientists there say people in the Northern U.S. have a great view of it, and it should be even better if it triggers aurorae, or solar particles coming into contact with earth's magnetic field and our atmosphere.

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NASA said the event was classified a C3 class solar flare. This is a relatively minor event as compared to X and M class flares. Larger solar flares can disrupt communication systems and electronics.

The sun experiences relatively predictable cycles of activity usually lasting 11 years. The last solar maximum occurred in 2001 and since then the star has been quiet. NASA said that eruptions such as this are usually signs that the sun is beginning to wake up and begin a period of higher activity expected to peak in 2013.

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When solar flares pulled the northern lights farther south than usual this week, photographers across the world were ready to capture the rare sight on camera.

iReporter JesperG showed us lights dancing across the Denmark sky in a dazzling time-lapse video created from about 100 photographs. "Avid sky watcher" spirithands captured a stunning shot of a person silhouetted against Canada's glowing horizon. And in Norway, Wiciwato was treated to a view so spectacular, it brought tears to his eyes.

"When I realized I've actually witnessed the northern lights I just began to smile, because I had started to doubt that I would see it," Wiciwato said.

As the evening wore on, the light show became brighter, explained the 16-year-old photographer. "Around 1:30 [a.m.] when it was at its most powerful – also the time where I could easily see it with my naked eye – I actually started to cry a little. It was such a beautiful sight."

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