Across last week: Auroras brighten the evening skies

Auroras danced through the skies of northern Europe and Greenland last week.

The Aurora Borealis provided an impressive spectacle throughout the week. The auroras could be seen from Canada to Greenland and Iceland to Finland. The image in the post above was taken in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.

The following video was taken in the north of Scandinavia, a burst of solar activity is responsible.

The northern lights are a phenomenon that can be observed mainly in the high latitudes, including the far north of Scotland.

Responsible for the aurora is the sun, which constantly hurls plasma into space. After a few days, these particles hit the earth's atmosphere as a solar storm, causing these magical lights to appear in the sky.

The atmosphere deflects the charged particles of the solar wind toward the north and south poles. There, they plunge into the Earth's atmosphere.

In the upper atmosphere, they collide with air molecules and transfer some of their energy. Oxygen and nitrogen molecules in particular are ionized and thus begin to glow.

The color of the aurora depends on the type of air molecules and their height in the atmosphere. For example, oxygen atoms glow green at an altitude of 62 miles, then orange to red at an altitude of 120 miles.

Blue to violet is produced by the excitation of nitrogen atoms. The green glow is also clearly visible in the upper images from Iceland.