Northern Lights spotted over Scotland as stargazers delight at natural phenomenon

Abbie Meehan
·1-min read
Aurora borealis in Gardenstown on April 19.
The stunning light show was in full bloom in Scotland -Credit:Fubar News


The Northern Lights graced the skies of Scotland on Friday night as stargazers enjoyed the natural phenomenon fleeting across the nation.

On April 19, the aurora borealis appeared across Perth and Kinross with the town of Crieff snapping photos of the sky bathed in purple and blue light.

The aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, are caused by activity on the surface of the Sun.

The Royal Greenwich Museum reports that solar storms on the surface of the Sun send out clouds of electrically charged particles, which travel millions of miles and collide with the Earth.

The majority of this activity can be deflected away but some are captured in the globe's magnetic field and will head down towards the north and south poles in the atmosphere - which cause the phenomenon.

The aurora borealis over Crieff in Scotland last night.
The aurora borealis over Crieff in Scotland last night -Credit:Fubar News

Royal Observatory astronomer Tom Kerss said: "These particles then slam into atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere and essentially heat them up. We call this physical process ‘excitation’, but it’s very much like heating a gas and making it glow."

The Northern Lights were also spotted over Elgin, Inverary, Peterhead and Forfar, with plenty of people snapping pictures of this light show.

Did you see the Northern Lights on Friday night? Let us know in the comments below and share your photos of the natural phenomenon.

Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • Is dark matter’s main rival theory dead? There’s bad news from the Cassini spacecraft and other recent tests

    Recent research shows the main alternative theory to dark matter, Milgromian dynamics, is failing.

  • NASA simulation shows what it would be like to get sucked into black hole

    NASA’s new immersive black hole visualization shows what it would be like to get sucked into a supermassive black hole and slingshotted out.

  • Happy 98th Birthday, Sir David Attenborough: The rock star of the natural world and broadcasting hero...

    A rock star in the natural world, Sir David Attenborough - who is famous for his distinct dulcet tones when narrating - has been there from the dawn of wildlife television and seen many advances in technology and, sadly, several extinctions and the decline of the natural world. His campaigning and educational documentaries have inspired generations of conservationists, photographers and filmmakers. Here's the legend's life in pictures... A rock star in the natural world, Sir David Attenborough - who is famous for his distinct dulcet tones when narrating - has been there from the dawn of wildlife television and seen many advances in technology and, sadly, several extinctions and the decline of the natural world.

  • Five common sweeteners and what they’re really doing to your body

    Over the last five to six years, a new sweetener has found its way into a variety of common foods. Its name is neotame, or E961. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced it was safe to use in foods and soft drinks in 2007, an alternative to aspartame that was more than 8,000 times sweeter than sugar.

  • Unprecedented evidence humans occupied ‘lava tubes’ could fill in gaps in the archaeological record, scientists say

    People in the Arabian desert once occupied natural underground tunnels thousands of years ago that were made of cooled lava, archaeologists have discovered.

  • Ancient shrimp named ‘weegie’ in honour of Glasgow origins

    A type of shrimp that died out hundreds of millions of years ago has been declared a new species and a Glaswegian.

  • The reconstruction of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman’s face makes her look quite friendly – there’s a problem with that

    Scientists can’t yet tell how soft tissue overlayed bones, so this reconstruction is inevitably based on artistic licence.

  • Nasa supercomputer reveals what it looks like to fall into a black hole in mind-bending video

    ‘Once the camera crosses the horizon, its destruction by spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away,’ says Nasa scientist

  • Still have eclipse glasses? See the sunspot 15 times wider than Earth

    Sunspot AR3664 visible on the bottom right part of the Earth-facing side of the sun on May 9, 2024. (NASA/ Solar Dynamics Observatory) Millions of people who went out of their way to find eclipse glasses to see April's stunning solar eclipse can put them to use once again to see an incredibly large feature on the surface of the sun. Sunspot AR3664 has been growing over the past few days and is roughly 124,000 miles across-more than 15 times wider than the Earth. A sunspot this large is easy enou

  • 30 GCSE science quiz questions to test your knowledge

    It's been a while since most of us sat our science GCSEs - but could you still pass the test?

  • ‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair

    Exclusive: Survey of hundreds of experts reveals harrowing picture of future, but they warn climate fight must not be abandoned

  • Apple reveals ultra-thin iPad Pro with M4 chip - Tech & Science Daily Podcast

    As Apple revealed its new range of iPads, the one everyone is talking about is the 13-inch iPad Pro, the tech giant’s thinnest ever product. The iPad is 5.1mm thick, making it even thinner than the 2005 iPod Nano, yet contains Apple’s most advanced chip yet, the M4, designed to accommodate new AI tools. Alongside the iPads, a new Pencil Pro was revealed that better interacts with the iPad screen, and a new Magic keyboard with more buttons and a better trackpad.

  • UK toddler has hearing restored in world first gene therapy trial

    Opal Sandy can hear almost perfectly after groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes

  • Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs reveal AI able to predict large swathes of molecular biology

    AlphaFold 3 is already helping Isomorphic work on new drugs for Eli Lilly and Novartis. It can predict the interaction of proteins, DNA, RNA, and many small molecules key to drug design

  • NASA Releases Video of What It's Like to Fall Into a Black Hole

    A new NASA simulation takes you to where no human has ever dared to go: into the overpowering embrace of a black hole. The stunning visualization, available on YouTube in a 360-degree video and as an explainer, shows the reality-warping journey of approaching a supermassive black hole's event horizon, the boundary past which nothing returns. […]

  • Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere

    Experts issue warning after finding global average concentration in March was 4.7ppm higher than same period last year

  • Prehistoric monuments in Ireland's ancient east may have been 'pathways for the dead'

    The new discoveries made in the Baltinglass area of Co Wicklow, challenged previous assumptions about the area's history, and the spiritual and social practices in the early Neolithic and Bronze Age

  • China approves first gene-edited wheat in step to open up GM tech to food crops

    China has approved the safety of gene-edited wheat for the first time as Beijing cautiously moves forward with commercial growing of genetically modified food crops. China has in the past year ramped up approvals of genetically modified (GM) corn and soybean seeds that are higher-yielding and resistant to insects and herbicide to secure its food security, but the uptake remains slow and cautious due to concerns about the impact to health and ecology. Unlike genetic modification, which introduces foreign genes into a plant, gene editing alters existing genes to change or improve its performance and is viewed by some scientists as less risky than genetically modifying them.

  • Hottest April on record extends global temperature streak

    STORY: ::Julien Nicolas, Copernicus climate scientist"April this year was the warmest April on record globally. That's the 11th month for which the temperature has been the warmest on record for the same month in all previous year for which we have data.":: May 7, 2024"What's most puzzling, is that despite the end of the El Nino event, the global sea surface temperature remains so high. Many scientists have asked the question whether there could be a shift in the climate system. I think that's, that's one of the questions that is keeping scientists, climate scientists busy at the moment, is trying to understand whether we fully understand the climate system or if something had a shift, whether we have reached a possible tipping point."Each month since June 2023 has ranked as the planet's hottest on record, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin.Including April, the world's average temperature was the highest on record for a 12-month period - 1.61 degrees Celsius above the average in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.Some of the extremes - including months of record breaking sea surface temperatures - have led scientists to investigate whether human activity has now triggered a tipping point in the climate system.

  • Edmonton aims to fuel innovation and diversify economy with $5M Edge Fund

    The City of Edmonton is giving $5 million to 17 organizations in a new program called the Edge Fund, aimed at supporting tech and innovation and diversifying the local economy. Grants range from $100,000 to $750,000 in two streams: "Scale and grow" for larger projects and the "Start" stream for smaller amounts.Zero Point Cryogenics, established in 2017 with expertise from the University of Alberta, is receiving $723,020 to scale up production of dilution refrigerators, used in quantum computing