Nature is just so natural

Happened to come across these pictures forwarded to me, and wow, they are so amazing, so awesome, and simply impressive!!! Such amazing phenomenon is known as the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis.

Northern Lights occur when materials thrown off the surface of the sun collides with the atmosphere of the Earth. The sun gives off high-energy charged particles called ions that travel out into space at fast speed. A cloud of ions is called a plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as a solar wind. As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the Earth's magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionsphere. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionsphere, they start to glow, producing the spectacular Northern Lights. The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. Such lights usually occurs in northern parts of Scandinavia and across northern Canada.

Also caught this picture from the forward. This is known as the Fire Rainbow...yes...because it looks like fire! Fire Rainbow is also known as the circumhorizon arc (CHA). It occurs when the sun is high in the sky above the horizon, and in the presence of cirrus clouds. The phenomenon is rare because there must be the right amount of ice crystals in the sky and aligned horizontally to refract the sun's ray, across the entire cirrus clouds, that makes it shine like a flaming rainbow.


Ok I am determine to search for such wonderful display of the nature!