On Saturday night, the Northern Lights illuminated a large portion of the UK and Ireland, from Stonehenge in southern England to Orkney and Donegal.
The Wiltshire historical landmark's official Twitter account posted a picture along with the caption, "Northern Lights over Stonehenge last night".
Northern Lights over Stonehenge last night 😍✨#aurora #auroraborealis #northernlights #stonehenge
— Stonehenge U.K (@ST0NEHENGE) November 5, 2023
Photo credit Stonehenge Dronescapes on FB 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/aFh2XWOME5
The Northern Lights, also called the aurora borealis, are best seen in Scotland, according to the Met on Sunday, while "it could be possible as far south as central Wales and England".
What are the Northern Lights?
The Northern Lights is a natural light display in Earth's sky.
The lights, also known as the aurora borealis, (or Southern Lights, aurora australis) are most frequently visible close to Earth's magnetic north and south poles.
The term "aurora borealis" was first used in 1619 by Italian astronomer Galielo Galiliei, who named the lights after the Greek god Boreas and the Roman goddess Aurora, who was associated with dawn. The earliest known sighting of the Northern Lights, however, is thought to be a 30,000-year-old French cave artwork.
Where are the best places in the UK to see them?
Northumberland's wide, dark skies, along with the county's castles and shoreline, make it one of the best sites to see the Northern Lights.
If you are further north, you have a greater chance to see the magic show. The lights can also be seen in Glasgow and surrounding areas.
The lights also put on a show in Lincolnshire, as the county is home to enormous clear skies.
The Northern Lights also illuminate the skies above Shropshire and County Durham.
What causes Northern Lights to happen?
They are brought on by the interaction of solar wind – a stream of particles that originates from the sun. Millions of kilometres can be covered by the particles before some of them arrive at Earth. The Earth's magnetic field then directs them towards polar regions.
Different quantities of energy are released as different wavelengths of light, depending on which gas molecules are struck and where they are in the atmosphere; nitrogen creates red light, while oxygen produces green light.
The phenomena, according to Professor Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick's department of physics, is the result of "particles from the sun, the solar wind, interacting with the Earth's atmosphere – channelled to the polar regions by the Earth's magnetic field.
“It’s actually a bit like iron filings and the field of a bar magnetic.
“The solar wind contains more particles when there are sun spots, as these are regions on the sun’s surface where the magnetic field is interacting with the plasma in the sun, and the particles can be released.
“Once the particles are channelled into the Earth’s atmosphere, they interact with molecules and have distinctive colours (eg oxygen molecules produce green light, nitrogen red light etc) and patterns such as light emissions that look like curtains or spotlights.
“These shapes change quickly over timescales of minutes/seconds.”
