A new video shows the northern lights and a bright comet above the Scandinavian Arctic on March 20. The footage of Comet Pan-STARRS was captured by photographer Chad Blakely while on a trip to northern Sweden's legendary Abisko National Park.
The video is 80 seconds long and shows comet Pan-STARRS burning just above the horizon. The official name of the comet is "C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)" and it was discovered in Hawaii in June 2011. It got its name from the instruments used to observe the phenomenon, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System Telescope.
For most of March, Comet Pan-STARRS has been making itself visible to onlookers as it shines above the horizon. The comet is slowly dimming and by the end of March it's expected to be visible using only binoculars or telescopes. For now, it can still be seen during sunset.
As the Huffington Post reported, "The auroras began as soon as the sun went down and continued to dance all night long. To say that we had an incredible night would be a huge understatement," said Chad Blakley, who captured the photo.
Auroras are particularly high-altitude displays of natural light in the sky seen in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. This happens when charged particles bump into atoms in the layer of the Earth's atmosphere called the thermosphere. The magnetic field of the Earth pushes these charged particles up into the higher altitudes.
Two effects of these types of displays can occur and are either called northern lights or southern lights. Northern lights refer to auroras high above that give off a greenish or sometimes faint red glow in the northern horizon near the magnetic pole. In southern lights, the displays are visible from high southern altitudes in Antarctica, South America, New Zealand and Australia.
