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The first ever commercial flight to the Antarctic Circle from Dunedin New Zealand to intercept the auroral oval on the night of 23 March 2017.
The 134 passengers on the sold-out flight were treated to an incredible display of light at the edge of space after the plane took off from Dunedin.
Organiser and Otago Museum Director Ian Griffin said, ‘I thought it was absolutely brilliant. We were right under it. There were beautiful streamers, auroral streamers.
‘This green-colored stuff that moves quickly, it looks like you’re looking into a green, streaky river.’
Passenger Nick Wong said, ‘I didn’t think we would actually see such a spectacular display, even by the naked eye.’
Auroras — bands of eerily glowing light that undulate unpredictably in the night sky —commonly occur at high northern and southern latitudes, and are known as the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere and the aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere, according to NASA.
