5 things you need to know about auroras

Heat and energy produced by the hydrogen atoms of the sun leave the star in large clouds of electrically charged particles. It takes the clouds around 18 hours to reach the Earth's atmosphere, where they collide with the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen. After the collisions, these particles release photons which create the light.

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Southern lights are known as aurora australis and can be seen in high southern latitudes in Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, can be seen in regions surrounding the Arctic: Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Greenland Russia, and Scandinavia.

Polar lights form in rings centered over our planet's magnetic poles, which can be clearly seen from the orbit.

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The color of the auroras depends on the particles electrons from the sun collide with. Interacting with nitrogen usually results in blue light, while colliding with oxygen creates green and red light. All these colors can blend, producing pink, white or purple light. The most common color of the polar lights is greenish-yellow.

In 2012, researchers from Aalto University in Finland recorded the noises the aurora borealis can make. It sounds like claps or someone's banging on a pipe. These noises are quite soft, so one has to listen very carefully to hear them.