Watch: Security camera footage show the skies illuminated in pink and green tones<\/p>\n
Skies across the UK have been illuminated in hues of green and pink by the Northern Lights.<\/p>\n
The natural phenomenon – known as the Aurora Borealis – is the result of solar eruptions sending particles towards the Earth and interacting with particles in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
The Northern Lights are mostly visible near the Arctic Circle but at times of high solar activity can be seen in other areas.<\/p>\n
Photos sent in to the BBC show dazzling images of light experienced on Monday evening across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as well as in parts of south-west, southern, eastern and northern England. <\/p>\n
The Met Office said widespread auroras were visible across the UK, with reports extending as far south as northern Italy.<\/p>\n
The activity is expected to decline but may still be visible in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland on Tuesday, it added. <\/p>\n
Monday’s stunning aurora was the result of a severe geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME) – waves of charged particles that erupt from the sun’s surface.<\/p>\n
As they approach Earth, they interact with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, creating the colours we see in the night sky. Oxygen atoms glow green and nitrogen red, blue and pink.<\/p>\n
We are currently in a period of high solar activity, called solar maximum, during the sun’s 21-year cycle. The sun has more sunspots which emit CMEs and solar flares – waves of electromagnetic radiation – and so we see more aurorae on Earth.<\/p>\n
Geomagnetic storms and solar flares are perfectly safe for us as we are protected from the radiation by our atmosphere, but they can interfere with technology.<\/p>\n
The aurora is best viewed under clear skies. Look to the north for a faint glow at first and if you can’t see the colours, try through a camera lens or on your phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch: Security camera footage show the skies illuminated in pink and green tones Skies across the UK have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-247881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}