THE Northern Lights came out to play with a dazzling display in the skies over Castle Stuart golf course in Inverness.
The swirling Aurora Borealis was spotted during the early hours of yesterday morning over parts of Scotland and northern England, including as far south as St Mary’s Island, near Whitley Bay, Northumberland.
The atmospheric light show is caused by particles from the sun blown outwards by the solar wind, striking Earth’s magnetic field at the north pole and being diverted southwards to the dark side of the planet. Scientists say that conditions to see the lights this week are especially good. The Borealis is generally either green or purple, with white bursts created when the two colours merge.
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
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