Wonders of the northern lights

Tens of kilometers above the icy waterfalls surrounding Iceland’s Kirkjufell Mountain, Earth’s magnetic field drags electrons from the sun to their visually stunning demise. The zooming particles collide with nitrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, an interaction that produces a brilliant blue-green light show called an aurora.

Photographer Nicholas Roemmelt captured this scene on a moonlit night in March. The shot won him third prize in the “Beauty of the Night Sky” category of the recent International Earth & Sky Photo Contest.