PEOPLE in north Pembrokeshire were treated to a stunning sight on Sunday night as the Aurora Borealis was visible in the night's sky.
More commonly known as the Northern Lights, the most common place you can view them is on a trip to Scandinavia. Although, if you’re lucky, you can occasionally see the lights in some of the most northern parts of Scotland.
But on Sunday, February 26, the lights were visible across most of the UK, and Camera Club member Chris Gayle captured the phenomenon looking north towards Fishguard and Goodwick - whilst Laura Winters shared some stunning pictures of the lights above the Preseli hills.
Chris said: "This was certainly rare to see here in Pembrokeshire; Aurora Borealis dancing in the skies looking north towards Fishguard and Goodwick.
"So glad I decided to head out and take the chance to capture it. Taken with Sony a7iii and sigma 35mm f1.4."
The Met Office confirmed that the sightings on Sunday were “a coronal hole high speed stream” combining with “a rather fast coronal mass ejection.”
What is Aurora Borealis?
Aurora Borealis is caused by atoms and molecules in the atmosphere which collide with particles from the sun.
It gets the distinctive wavy shape by the Earth’s magnetic field’s lines of force. The colours come from the different gases, with green being oxygen and the purple, blue or pink being nitrogen.
Royal Museums Greenwich explains on its website that the lights are caused by solar storms on the surface of the sun giving out clouds of electrically charged particles which can travel millions of miles and collide with the Earth.
Most particles are deflected away but some are captured in the Earth’s magnetic field and accelerate down towards the north and south poles, colliding with atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere, according to the observatory.
The lights are the product of this collision between atoms and molecules from the Earth’s atmosphere and particles from the sun.
A Met Office spokesperson said the rare sightings of the aurora borealis in the UK on Sunday night were due to the “strength” of a geomagnetic storm and the “strip of cloudless skies” in southern regions.
Will I see it again?
If you missed seeing the phenomenon last night then you may be in with a chance to see it on Monday night. The Met Office said yesterday that it is likely to be visible again as long as there are dark, clear skies.
The head of space weather at the Met Office, Mark Gibbs, said: “The aurora will continue tonight but with cloudy skies across much of the UK, it may be too optimistic to expect clear sightings two nights in a row.
“Last night’s sighting saw the coincidence of perfect conditions, making the aurora visible on the north horizon. But if you have a clear sky tonight, head outside around midnight and have a look".
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