Northern Lights aka Aurora Borealis

Have you ever seen the Northern Lights?


     There are tales told about the Northern Lights. Eskimos say that the Northern Lights are spirits playing ball in the sky with a walrus skull. Another tale told is that they are flaming torches carried by departed souls guiding travelers to the afterlife.

     I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for 3 years. It was such a great experience to live in Alaska. I experienced ice sculptures, moose, freezing temperatures, Santa Clause, daylight/darkness for a whole day and of course the Northern Lights! The Northern Lights were so beautiful to watch.  At times you just could not believe what you were seeing. When they were at their brightest all the neighbors would call each other. My most memorable moment was sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows and seeing a moose walk by as the Northern Lights were dancing.

Northern Lights dancing above an igloo on a cold winter day in northern Alaska.

     Northern gets its name because you can see the lights in the North. Aurora was named after the Roman goddess of dawn. The Northern Lights are produced by sunlight reflected from polar snow and ice, or refracted light much like rainbows. A scientific way to look at it is that solar winds flow across the Earth's upper atmosphere, hitting molecules of gas lighting them up much like a neon sign.

     Northern Lights are created from radiation emitted as light from atoms in the upper atmosphere as they are hit by fast-moving electrons and protons. In other words, energy particles from the sun collide with the Earth’s magnetic field. The kind of atom determines the color. There are different colors when witnessing the Northern Lights.

Northern Alaska is one of the best locations for a Northern Lights picture.

     The Northern Lights are the best to watch from December to March when the nights are longest and the sky darkest. In Alaska the day and night rotate all the way to an hour of daylight to an hour of darkness. You can witness them 50-200 feet from the Earth.

     Ribbons of light can shimmer in the sky for hours, like glowing, dancing curtains of green, yellow and orange or dark red. They can twist and turn in patterns called "rayed bands". They may also whirl into a giant green corona in which rays appear to flare in all directions from a central point, and then fade away. The rarest aurora is the red aurora.

     An intense Northern Lights display can cause problems on the ground. Some problems include blackouts and oil pipelines corrosion. The National Space Weather Program studies these effects in an attempt to improve the prediction of aurora disturbances.


 http://fairbanks-alaska.com