"It travelled right across in front of us and glowed a bright green before it broke up and faded," Mr McCallister said. "Meteors have lots of iron and nickel, when it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere you get to see it as burning as a blue-green colour," Dr Tucker said. "At its brightest a pink glow with some vertical pillars of light were visible to the naked eye. "For other parts of the night, the brightness reduced and you could only see it as a pale grey glow with my night vision. "Dr Tucker said the especially visible auroras were down to a strong solar storm ejected from the sun hitting the Earth.