A solar storm has hit Earth's outer defences, generating colourful northern lights in Scotland.This spectacular aurora display was captured over the pier at St Andrews by Thomas Robitaille, an undergraduate student of Astrophysics at the town's university.The display follows a large solar flare which sends a stream of charged particles towards the earth that are captured by the magnetic field lines in the polar regions and when they hit the upper atmosphere, excite molecules of gas, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, causing them to emit an eerie green and red light.The storm was generated along with a medium-class solar flare.

The Aurora occurs when energetic electrically charged particles (mostly electrons) accelerate along the magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with gas atoms, causing the atoms to give off light.

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