Northern lights: Incredible aurora borealis lights up Scottish skies
- Published
These images of the lights were taken right across Scotland, from Orkney in the north of the country, to Dumfries and Galloway in the south. How spectacular do all the photos look!
The lights certainly look magical, but there's also some pretty interesting science behind it all.
The Sun has a big part to play. It creates what's known as 'solar wind', which is a stream of tiny charged particles which escape from it. The particles in the solar wind contain lots of energy.
When the wind reaches Earth, it interacts with the planet's magnetic field. The particles in the solar wind are guided along the magnetic field towards the Earth's north and south poles.
However, some solar wind particles get past the magnetic field and travels towards Earth, and this causes something pretty cool to happen.
The solar wind interacts with the Earth's atmosphere. This leads the particles in the solar wind to hit the particles in the Earth’s atmosphere releasing energy and this is what creates the Northern Lights!
The aurora borealis can appear in the sky as rays of light which shimmer and 'dance'.
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