Aurora chasers discovered and filmed a new type of aurora that reaches across the sky like fingers. It's called 'the dunes.'

Rami Valonen

• Amateur northern-lights chasers made a rare discovery: a new type of aurora, which they dubbed "the dunes."
• The new aurora reaches horizontally across the sky in long green fingers, and it could help scientists study a mysterious region of the atmosphere.
• Researchers think the dunes form when electric currents from space create folds and curls in Earth's atmosphere.
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Mysterious fingers of green light reaching across the sky are a new type of aurora, new research has confirmed.

Amateur northern-lights photographers first spotted the unusual patterns in Finland and called them "the dunes." The patterns seem to come from electricity in space that creates waves in Earth's atmosphere.

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