NASA footage shows enchanting dance of auroras over a country from space

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The International Space Station (ISS) provides an incredible vantage point to capture some of Earth's most magical phenomena, such as auroras.

NASA has taken to the official International Space Station X account to share some footage captured on January 4. The post states the ISS soared into an aurora "dancing" over Canada, with the video showcasing city lights in the landscape below. Following the footage, the floating laboratory orbited into a sunrise 259 miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

For those that don't know, an aurora is caused by the interaction between solar wind and Earth's magnetic field. Here's how it works. The solar wind contains a stream of charged particles ejected from the Sun, and when these charged particles collide with Earth's magnetic field, they are directed toward our planet's poles. The charged particles collide with the gasses in Earth's upper atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen, resulting in the gases becoming excited and releasing energy in the form of light.

The different colors of the aurora are a result of different gasses becoming excited, with green being oxygen and the most common, red oxygen at high altitudes, and blue/purple being nitrogen molecules. Auroras are typically seen near the North and South Poles, but when Earth endures an intense blast of solar particles, they can be seen much closer to the equator.

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