An aurora dances in the Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station orbits at night, rising 260 miles (418 km) above Utah. Auroras are bright bands of light along the Earth's north or south polar regions. These natural light displays are caused by magnetic storms triggered by solar activity such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles). The energised particles from these events are carried away from the Sun by the solar wind.

This is your time to shine: Aurorasaurus.org is the first citizen science project to bring together relatively rare observations of the Northern and Southern Lights with the aim of improving real-time tracking and understanding of this beautiful phenomenon. The Aurorasaurus project allows us to enter aurora observations on their website as well as on a mobile app platform to better characterise their frequency, location and rare visual features.

Image description:

An image from the International Space Station shows the Earth's surface under the green haze of the aurora. The lights are pointing at the Earth's surface from beneath a layer of clouds. Parts of the space station are visible in the right corner of the image.