Northern lights appear over Inner Mongolia city

The stunning beauty of the aurora borealis appeared at 2:40 am on Monday in Genhe, Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The shifting multicolored auroras, mostly of reddish hue, adorned the deep night sky.

The phenomenon lasted about four minutes, making its fleeting beauty even more precious and mysterious. It was reported that the appearance of the aurora in Genhe was the result of a geomagnetic storm. Solar storms release high-energy particles and electromagnetic radiation that race toward Earth, where the planet's magnetic field attracts them to latitudes near the north and south poles, where they collide with molecules or atoms in the atmosphere to produce the luminescent aurora. Located in the pan-Arctic Circle region, Genhe is one of the best places in the China to observe the aurora.