Northern Lights: Skies over Stirling - Picture by John Dewar
Scotland has had a rare display of the northern lights on Wednesday night, with skies above the country lit up with bright colours from around midnight.
The display can usually only be witnessed in the far north, but on wednesday night the phenomenon could be across central Scotland.
The unusual display was caused by a cloud of particles that had been ejected from the sun following a giant solar flare at the weekend. The contents of a filament of gas - 50 times the size of the earth - that was on the surface of the sun ignited, causing the massive cloud of particles to be ejected into space.
This resulted in what has been referred to as a 'solar tsunami', with the particles hurtling a distance of 93 million miles towards earth. When these eventually collide with the upper atmosphere, a spectacular display of lights is the result.
Normally this can only be seen in areas close to the north and South Pole, but the extent of the solar flare resulted in them being visible far further south that would be normal in the northern hemisphere.
IN DETAIL
A number of viewers sent in pictures of the phenomenon, if you have any pictures you want to share, send them to news@stv.tv
