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Watch: Passenger captures stunning time-lapse video of northern lights on flight from Alaska
(Video credit: Alexander Falconer via Storyful )
A passenger on a flight from Alaska to Washington was able to capture a stunning time-lapse video of the northern lights while the airplane zoomed across the night sky.
Alexander Falconer said he was traveling to Seattle from Fairbanks when he noticed the dazzling display and began recording video.
It shows a bright green aurora and magenta edges bleeding into the starry sky.
Falconer said he filmed the time-lapse video by hand over a period of about three hours.
What are the Northern Lights?
The northern lights are one of the most stunning displays the planet can provide.
Vivid northern lights displays usually follow solar events known as coronal mass ejections or solar flares. The flares bring a barrage of electrons that interact with oxygen and nitrogen in Earth's magnetic field that surrounds the outside of Earth.
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And the colors vary by the type of gas present. Oxygen molecules give off a green or yellow glow or sometimes can give off a bit of a red hue, according to NASA.
Meanwhile, nitrogen will give off blue hues when hit by solar energy.
The northern lights are primarily seen in the higher latitudes in Alaska or Canada, but they have also been seen further south in California, Nevada and even Texas during significant solar events.