Video of Southern Lights – level 3

17-05-2022 15:00

Time-lapse footage shows the Southern Lights, the southern hemisphere’s version of the Northern Lights.

As a starlit sky slowly turned, spectacular swathes of red, purple and blue light swept up into the night over New Zealand. Aurora sightings were also seen in Australia, America and across Europe.

A collision of particles in the earth’s atmosphere with electrically-charged particles released by the sun are what causes auroras. They are visible all year-round but are they are most vivid around the spring and autumn equinoxes.

Difficult words: spectacular (amazing), swath (a large and thin area), aurora (light that looks like waves up in the sky), particle (a small bit of energy), vivid (colourful and clear), equinox (when the night and the day are equal length).

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