The sky over Europe and North America lit up on Sunday night with a brilliant display of northern lights.
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, were triggered by a stream of very fast-moving particles from a coronal hole. Coronal holes are areas of the sun’s corona — a region around the sun that extends more than a million kilometres from its surface — that are less dense than the surrounding areas. These open areas of the magnetic field allow plasma and particles to stream out. When these holes face us, the particles get swept up into our magnetosphere, funnelling in towards the poles.
READ MORE: Why do we get the northern lights?
Most of the strongest display occurred over the United Kingdom, with many people from Scotland posting amazing photographs and videos.
Aurora Borealis from Graham Scott on Vimeo.
Get breaking National news
WATCH: The northern lights
Some people did manage to catch it in Canada and the northern U.S.
The geomagnetic storm was a G3 on a scale that ranges from G0 to G5, considered a strong storm by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in the U.S.
The SWPC said there is a 50 per cent chance that we could see another display tonight.
https://twitter.com/Fishboxuk/status/706858237350551552/photo/1
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.