Why try and describe the aurora borealis when I can just nick Philip Pullman's description?
"The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer. Lyra thought she could even hear them: a vast distant whispering swish." (From Pullman's novel Northern Lights).
This aurora was visible over large swathes of the UK last night, from the north of Scotland to as far south as Essex, Gloucestershire and South Wales – the photo above was taken bang in the middle of this range, in Whitley Bay on the country's east coast. Caused when high-energy electrons crash into Earth's atmosphere, the show was particularly intense because of a monster solar flare that erupted from the surface of the sun on 24 February.
The flare was "X-class" – the most powerful kind – and originated from a long-lived sunspot.
The US Space Weather Prediction Center says that further eruptions from the same region are possible.
If you missed it last night, this might partially make up for it: "Time-lapse Tuesday: Ultimate aurora".
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