Recent Norwegian discomfort at the idea that Finland might be out to "steal" the northern lights or Aurora borealis from its tourism industry will hardly have been quelled by reports coming from the Finnish Meteorological Institute on Tuesday, suggesting that the phenomenon does not always even require heading to the far north and Lapland.
The Institute's northern lights camera in Helsinki’s Kumpula district captured an exceptionally bright display of northern lights on Monday evening.
The colourful display of changing light patterns in the high altitude atmosphere was clearly visible even in Estonia and Latvia.
In North America, the freakishly bright auroral display was witnessed as far south as in Arkansas, Virginia, Alabama, and in Atlanta, Georgia.
This time the northern lights were exceptionally red in colour.
The unusually intense display was caused by a recent mass ejection of particles from the sun.
When such energetic particles fall into the earth’s magnetic field, they collide with the atoms in the upper atmosphere. The energy released in the collision is emitted as visible light.
