Southern lights

This timelapse footage shows the Southern Lights, the southern hemispheres version of the Northern Lights. As the starlit sky slowly turned, spectacular swathes of red, purple and blue light swept up into the night over Christchurch. Aurora sightings were also reported in Australia, America and across Europe. They are caused by the collision of particles in the earths atmosphere with electrically charged particles released by the suns atmosphere. They are visible all yearround but are generally most vivid around the spring and autumn equinoxes. Difficult words: timelapse footage (video that runs over a long time), hemisphere (half of the earth), starlit (lit by stars), spectacular (amazing), swath (a large and thin area), collision (crash), particle (small bit of energy), vivid (colourful and clear), equinox (when night and day are equal length).