The spectacle was witnessed by passengers on a charity flight chartered by Aerobility, an organisation that raises money to give people with disabilities the chance to fly.

Those on board, who included presenters from the BBC's The Sky At Night show, witnessed a spectrum of red, yellow and green lights above the clouds.

The Aerobility Aurora flight took off from London Gatwick at 8.20pm. Shortly afterwards the cabin lights were turned off to help the 74 passengers' eyes adjust to the night sky. The British Airways plane then flew to 61 North, a circle of latitude that passes over the Shetland Isles.

On Friday night the Northern Lights were spotted in the UK as far south as Gloucestershire, Essex and Norfolk, as a result of a strong magnetic storm.

Astronomer Will Gater captured the below timelapse footage of the skies in South Gloucestershire at the time.

The Northern Lights are usually visible in only the more northern parts of the UK, but a surge in geomagnetic activity led to them appearing much further south than usual.

The display occurs when explosions on the surface of the Sun hurl huge amounts of charged particles into space, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS).

Those thrown towards Earth are captured by its magnetic field and guided towards the geomagnetic polar regions. Charged particles collide with gas molecules in the atmosphere, and the subsequent energy is given off as light.

Geomagnetic storms follow an 11-year "solar cycle", and the last "solar maximum" was last year, according to the BGS.