Photographer Oliver Wright, who also leads aurora borealis tours in Lapland, caught the above several minutes of the Northern Lights in Abisko, Sweden on Friday evening. Normally such an impressive display is the result of a geomagnetic storm hitting earth after a blast of flares or other heightened activity from the sun colliding with our magnetic field. Instead, the show Wright caught is the result of something called the Russell-McPherron effect. Scientists have been aware of the phenomenon for decades - basically the geometry of the solar wind and our magnetic field around the time of the equinoxes is such that the two opposing fields cancel each other out, opening up weaknesses or "cracks" in our magnetosphere. The result can be better and brighter than normal auroras, and burnt pizza.

Source: Forbes March 25, 2018 18:00 UTC