Excitement spread like wildfire on February 26th after the Met Office announced that the Aurora Borealis, aka The Northern Lights, may be visible in certain dark sky sites in England. The team here at Newquay Activity Centre had our fingers and toes crossed that we’d be lucky enough, but the idea of seeing the Northern Lights as far south as Cornwall seemed too fanciful to be true.
The phenomena is caused by solar storms in the sun’s atmosphere sending waves of electrically charged particles hurtling millions of miles towards earth, where they then collide with elements in earth’s atmosphere. The resulting spectacle is usually reserved for those lucky enough to make the trip of a lifetime to the Arctic Circle… or so we thought.
Much to our delight and disbelief, we were given front row seats to the greatest show on earth, two nights on the trot! We stared upwards, mesmerised, as the world’s most stunning natural wonder danced in the Cornish sky.
Our favourite photo was taken by Ashe Morgan and captures the elegant beauty of the Northern Lights over Fistral Beach. The velveteen night sky sits in contrast to a pink so vibrant, it seems to set the heavens alight; the waves continue to break in the foreground, it’s business as usual on the UK’s most famous surf beach.
