The Northern Lights lit up skies across the UK on Sunday night, even appearing as far south as Stonehenge.
People were able to photograph the lights across much of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as parts of England, from Northumberland down to Dorset.
Also known as Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights are a fairly rare occurrence in the UK, and when they can be seen, it is often only in the most northerly parts of the country.
But on Sunday even Steve made an appearance. And yes, you did read that name right.
What is Steve?
Steve is a thin purple ribbon of light that looks very similar to an aurora, though technically is not one.
It was given its name in 2016, following a US citizen science project funded by Nasa and the National Science Foundation.
The name is believed to be inspired by the 2006 Dreamworks animated film Over the Hedge. In that film a group of animals wake up from hibernation to discover an enormous hedge in their habitat, and are scared of it.
“I’d be a lot less afraid of it if I just knew what it was called,” one of the hedgehogs says, to which Hammy the red squirrel, voiced by Steve Carell, suggests: “Let’s call it Steve. It’s a pretty name.” The hedgehogs agree this makes the hedge seem less scary.
Steve now stands for “strong thermal emission velocity enhancement” – though it was given the name Steve before the acronym was invented.
It is different from an aurora because auroras are ovular in shape, while Steve is a ribbon. However, it only appears when there is also an aurora in the sky, for around 20 minutes to an hour at a time. Sightings have been reported in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the northern US.
Scientists at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre have suggested Steve is made up of a fast-moving stream of extremely hot particles called a subauroral ion drift, though there is still a level of mystery surrounding it.
What are the Northern Lights?
The Northern Lights occur as a consequence of solar activity and result from collisions of charged particles in the solar wind colliding with molecules in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The Met Office explains: “Solar winds are charged particles that stream away from the Sun at speeds of around one million miles per hour. When the magnetic polarity of the solar wind is opposite to the Earth’s magnetic field, the two magnetic fields combine allowing these energetic particles to flow into the Earth’s magnetic north and south poles. Auroras usually occur in a band called the annulus (a ring about 1,865 miles across) centred on the magnetic pole. The arrival of coronal mass ejections from the Sun can cause the annulus to expand, bringing the aurora to lower latitudes. It is under these circumstances that the lights can be seen in the UK.”
Depending on which gas molecules are hit and where they are in the atmosphere, different amounts of energy are released as different wavelengths of light.
Oxygen gives off green light when it is hit 60 miles above the Earth, while at 100-200 miles, rare, all-red auroras are produced. Nitrogen causes the sky to glow blue, and has a purple hue when higher in the atmosphere.
Will the Northern Lights be visible from the UK tonight?
It is unlikely that the Northern Lights will be visible again tonight, as geomagnetic activity has died down, though it is not impossible, at least in northern Scotland.
The Met Office says: “It is presumed that the majority of the enhanced aurora seen overnight on 5 November into 6 November has now passed, with only a chance of aurora sightings expected across northern Scotland for the remainder of 6 November and perhaps into 7 November. Thereafter aurora sightings are expected to become unlikely.”
The best conditions to view the lights are when the sky is dark and clear of any clouds. This means the best time to see them is after the sun sets, which is at 4.24pm today in London and 4.20pm in Edinburgh.
Ideally, the lights will be best viewed away from any light pollution, in remote areas, facing the northern horizon. North-facing coasts produce some of the best viewing locations.
The Aurora Watch UK X account and website, run by space physicists at the University of Lancaster, post when the Northern Lights may be visible from the UK.
