A view of the mysterious dragon aurora snapped in Iceland on Feb. 18, 2019.

(Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng)

At a Glance

A dragon-shaped aurora enthralled skygazers in Iceland earlier this month.The aurora was also unusual considering there were no discernible sunspots on the sun in February, typically a precursor for auroras.

NASA released a spectacular image this week of an aurora captured in the Icelandic night sky resembling a massive dragon unfurling its wings.

While the norther lights that are triggered when particles from the sun smash into the Earth's atmosphere are always stunning, the image captured by Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng is truly remarkable.

"Have you ever seen " NASA wrote on its Astronomy Picture of the Day site. "Although real flying dragons don’t exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in the sky over Iceland earlier this month. The aurora was caused by a hole in the sun’s corona that expelled charged particles into a solar wind that followed a changing interplanetary magnetic field to Earth’s magnetosphere."

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According to NASA, the aurora was so "enthralling that the photographer's mother ran out to see it and was captured in the foreground of the shot."

The photographer's mother can be seen in the foreground, enthralled by the incredible sight.

(Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng)

The aurora captured in Iceland was also unusual because there were no discernible sunspots on the sun in February, typically a precursor for auroras, NASA noted.

The dragon-shaped aurora is primarily green, highlighted with a bit of purple.

Typically, yellow and green auroras are produced when particles emitted from the sun interact with oxygen, while red, violet, and occasionally blue colors in an aurora occur , Space.com noted.

The lights have been a source of wonder for millennia. Cave paintings in France that depict the celestial event date back some 30,000 years.

Named aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere and aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere by astronomer Galileo Galilei, the polar spectacle was considered by some a harbinger of war or destruction before science began to understand what causes them.