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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Neil Shaw, Network Content Editor (Live and Trends) & Clare McCarthy

Stunning display as Northern Lights illuminate Irish skies for second night

People in parts of Ireland and the UK were stunned by jaw-dropping views of the northern lights for a second evening this week.

Lucky sky-gazers who got to see the magnificent display shared amazing pictures of the red, green and purple lights that happened in the sky on Monday night.

One woman in Achill, an island off Co Mayo, shared a snap on Twitter, writing! "Can’t believe it".

READ MORE: Ireland ‘Beast from the East’ update as maps show moment brutal cold snap hits

However, there was cloud covering most areas in Ireland with just a few breaks in the West.

An aurora is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions around the Arctic and Antarctic.

Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.

They are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind.

According to HullLive, Head of space weather at the Met Office, Mark Gibbs said: “It took about two days for those particles to arrive from the sun, then the particles enter the Earth’s upper atmosphere and excite atoms.

“The most common sight is green, which is the result of oxygen atoms being excited. (Sunday) night we saw some reds and purples, indicative of nitrogen atoms being excited.”

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