The Northern Lights Over The UK Last Night Were Pretty Amazing

    The sky looked especially stunning over Northumberland, the Lake District, Scotland, the Brecon Beacons, and Northern Ireland.

    Earlier this week, the most powerful solar flare in 20 years hit the Earth's atmosphere, and the results have been pretty goddamn spectacular.

    These photos show Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District, with Blencathra and Skiddaw in the background.

    And here's the display over Derwentwater, near Keswick, in the Lake District.

    And here's a guy called Tam Mullen paddleboarding on Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland.

    The displays were caused by something called a coronal mass ejection – a stream of charged particles spat out by the sun. When it hit our atmosphere, it resulted in a supercharged display of the Northern Lights, aka the aurora borealis.

    Here's the scene in Sutherland, on the northern coast of Scotland.


    The two blasts of magnetic plasma hit the atmosphere much earlier than scientists expected, and with much greater strength. The result was that the borealis was visible much further south than usual.

    The sky above the Usk Reservoir, in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, was a beautiful hue of pink and orange.

    Did you capture any spectacular shots of the Northern Lights? Please send them in to us at @BuzzFeedUK.