【Mika Muroi Archives】

For a brief moment on Mika Muroi ArchivesWednesday night the residents of an Icelandic city usually bathed in artificial light were treated to spectacular views of the green curtains of the northern lights dancing overhead.

Usually, people need to travel far from Reykjavík's city lights to catch sight of the aurora borealis. But yesterday, city officials dimmed street lights in certain parts of the city to allow tourists and full-time residents a chance to see the cosmic light show in their own backyards.

The city of Reykjavík turned off its street lights for an hour starting at 10 p.m. local time in about a dozen neighborhoods, allowing skywatchers to look up to sky in darkness.

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Many people who did see the northern lights from Reykjavík posted their views on Instagram and Twitter, revealing the dancing auroras above some of the city's landmarks.

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Because of its high latitude, Iceland, on the whole, tends to be a great place to see the northern lights when skies above the country are relatively cloud-free.

Reykjavík turned out its lights Wednesday because of a favorable aurora forecast, which called for a more pronounced light show than usual. The whole week has actually been a pretty good time for people to see the curtains of the northern lights in Iceland.

The auroras are sporadically produced when charged particles from the sun slam into Earth's upper atmosphere. Those solar particles are directed toward the planet's atmosphere along magnetic field lines, meaning that most of them hit the upper atmosphere above Earth's poles.

If the solar storm delivering the particles to Earth is strong enough, the oval of aurora activity can stretch into lower latitudes, which can bring the auroras to cities that don't usually get a chance to check it out.

Scientists can predict when auroras will grace the skies above certain cities thanks to satellites that monitor the sun on a daily basis.