Stunning Image of Giant Phoenix-Shaped Aurora Captured Amid the Northern Lights

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Only stargazers who chase the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis know what a treat it is for the eyes when the sky gets lit up in the shades of green, pink, yellow, blue, and more. But one photographer was even luckier, for what he got to witness was a different display in the form of a giant phoenix.

Hallgrimur P. Helgason, a photographer from Iceland, had been capturing the aurora lights dancing across the sky in Kaldársel for an hour one fine night in September 2015 when he spotted the lights taking the shape of a giant phoenix with its wings outstretched.

“It’s really a thrill shooting the aurora, especially when they are so playful like they were that night,” Helgason told Caters News Agency. “I have to admit that I always get an adrenaline kick when the lights burst out like that—that particular shot was the top one of the night.”

The photographer added that he captures the lights with the aid of a tripod but never uses a flash.

After Helgason posted his captivating photo on his Facebook page, one user asked if he “always get this kind of Northern Lights,” to which he responded that “they are fairly common, but not like this.”

Every year between late August and early April, tourists from all over the world would flock to countries such as Alaska, Canada, Finland, Iceland, and Norway in the hope of getting a glimpse of the Northern Lights.

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These beautiful lights are formed when fast-moving electrons emitted from the sun collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules in Earth’s atmosphere. The collision with electrons excites these molecules by energy transfer, causing these atmospheric particles to release small bursts of light called photons.

“When billions of these collisions occur and enough photons are released, the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere emit enough light for the eye to detect them. This ghostly glow can light up the night sky in a dance of colors,” noted NASA’s informative document on auroras.

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In fact, there are many different patterns of auroras, “from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays,” according to the Northern Lights Centre. However, there had been times when some stargazers were able to capture unusual shapes of the aurora.

For instance, Marja-Terttu Karlsson of Pajala, Finland, captured the shape of a wolf while photographing the aurora in 2015.

In February 2019, Jingyi Zhang, a student and an amateur photographer from Curtin University, Australia, captured a dragon-shaped aurora when she was chasing the Northern Lights in Iceland with her mother and a friend. Her stunning photo was even featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

“This iconic display was so enthralling that the photographer’s mother ran out to see it and was captured in the foreground,” NASA wrote.

Nature never ceases to amaze us! These unbelievable shots serve as yet another reminder of this.