Most people have to look up to the heavens, but a rare view of the Northern Lights was enjoyed by passengers on a plane flying above the clouds.
The spectacular lights of the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky last night, giving a unique perspective of the celestial phenomenon to people on a flight from Gatwick to just off the coast of the Shetland Isles.
The red, yellow and green lights were clearly visible, shining and dazzling above and beyond the clouds. The flight was chartered by Aerobility, a charity that gives people with disability the chance to fly, and had 74 passengers on board, including BBC's The Sky At Night presenters Pete Lawrence, Jon Culshaw and Dr Paul Abel.
The British Airways flight took off at 8.20pm and shortly after departure the cabin lights were turned off to help the passengers' eyes adjust to the night sky. The aircraft returned to Gatwick at around midnight.On Thursday night, the lights of the Aurora Borealis lit up skies as far south as Gloucestershire, Essex and Norfolk, the result of a strong magnetic storm.
The lights could be enjoyed in Glasgow, Orkney and Aberdeenshire, at Preston and in Whitley Bay.
The Northern Lights are usually visible in only the more northern parts of the UK, but a surge in geomagnetic activity led to them appearing much further south than usual. The display occurs when explosions on the surface of the sun hurl huge amounts of charged particles into space, according to the British Geological Survey.
Those thrown towards Earth are captured by its magnetic field and guided towards the geomagnetic polar regions.
Charged particles collide with gas molecules in the atmosphere, and the subsequent energy is given off as light.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article