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Northern lights — aurora borealis — were visible last night in Europe. Many people around Germany posted pictures of the aurora that was visible around midnight between Friday and Saturday. At the Thuringian State Observatory (TLS) in Tautenburg, the Northern Lights made observations by astronomers difficult. "The sky became so bright that most of the stars disappeared. Even a bright star like Beta Lyrae was barely visible, while fainter stars were lost in the glare," reported Dr. Eike Günther, researcher at TLS.

The northern lights originate from flares on the sun. These can emit not only light, but also charged particles. These charged particles hit the magnetic field of the Earth and penetrate along the field lines into the Earth's high atmosphere and thereby stimulate it to glow. This is how we see northern lights.

Our cloud monitoring camera recorded the sky during the entire night, showing the aurora developing (Video).

Green and pink colors were visible.

(Image taken with smartphone from Tautenburg, credit: Eike Guenther)

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Ursa Major constellation wrapped into northern lights seen from  downtown Göttingen (Credit: Patrick Gaulme)

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