Northern lights: spectacular footage captured in Iceland

The Powers of Nature : tameless, surprising, strong and unpredictable

This footage of the northern lights was filmed on 17 March near Gullfoss and Skaftafell in Iceland with multiple DSLR cameras. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, is one of the most sublime and magnificent natural phenomena on Earth. The glow is caused by high-energy electrons colliding with oxygen atoms and nitrogen molecules.

In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn,Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction. Discrete aurorae often display magnetic field lines or curtain-like structures, and can change within seconds or glow unchanging for hours, most often in fluorescent green. The aurora borealis most often occurs near the equinoctes. The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree call this phenomenon the "Dance of the Spirits". In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the auroras were commonly believed a sign from God.

Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis (or the southern lights), has almost identical features to the aurora borealis and changes simultaneously with changes in the northern auroral zoneand is visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America,New Zealand, and Australia. Aurorae occur on other planets. Similar to the Earth's aurora, they are visible close to the planet's magnetic poles. 

From The Guardian and Wikipedia