Tim Peake's incredible photos of Northern Lights

The Sussex spaceman, who is aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for six months, posted the new shots on his Twitter page.

He told his 380,000 plus followers how he had had a photography lesson from ISS colleague Scott Kelly before posting a series of shots.

He captioned the first "Today we flew straight past the #aurora."

With his second, he said: "OK-last #aurora pic for the day - I love the reflection in the ISS panel. Goodnight planet Earth!"

But he could not help himself and took to Twitter the following day to post more.

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis as they are otherwise known, are visible from parts of Northern Europe, parts of Canada, Russia and the Arctic.

They are caused by the interaction of the solar wind - a stream of charged particles escaping the Sun - and our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere.

As the wind approaches, it distorts our magnetic field and allows some charged particles from the Sun to enter our atmosphere.

The charged particles mix with the gases in our atmosphere and make them glow.

Tim Peake blasted off from Kazakhstan on December 15 and will spend six months in the ISS carrying out a number of scientific experiments.

Last week he became the first British astronaut to perform a space walk when he took part in a four hour operation to fix solar panels on the ISS.

The walk, which was due to last six hours, was cut short when fluid was found in his colleague's helmet.

Speaking after the mission, he described the walk as "exhilarating".

He added: "It will be etched in my memory forever – quite an incredible feeling!"

As well as furthering our knowledge of living in space, Tim is also attempting to inspire the next generation of astronauts.

He has employed Twitter as a key tool to achieve this and regularly posts to his followers and takes questions from youngsters.

He has also taken part in a number of live question and answer sessions with schools and has appeared on BBC's Stargazing Live.