Have you ever personally seen the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis?
By raenie
@raenie (705)
Philippines
January 12, 2007 11:36am CST
I haven't since I don't live in an area where it occurs. But I definitely want to witness this natural phenomenon at one point in my life. I have been fairly been intrigued by this natural light display ever since I was a child who saw pictures of it in a Reader's Digest book. The picture of the northern lights was so beautiful, eerie & haunting all the same time. So I'd like to know if there's anybody out there who's personally seen it? Would appreciate seeing personal pics posted here as well! =)
3 responses
@zal3x89 (280)
• Romania
12 Jan 07
Folklore abounds with explanations of the origins of the spellbinding celestial lights. In Finnish they are called "revontulet", which means "fox fires" a name derived from an ancient fable of the arctic fox starting fires fire or spraying up snow with its brush-like tail. No matter that in English "foxfire" is a luminescent glow emitted by certain types of fungi growing on rotten wood. The true story is that the sun is the father of the auroras.
The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds of 300 to 1200 kilometres per second. A cloud of such particles is called a plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth's magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere, the section of the earth's atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 600 kilometres above the earth's surface. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the spectacle that we know as the auroras, northern and southern. The array of colours consists of red, green, blue and violet.
The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the earth's magnetic field. The solar wind commonly generates up to 1000,000 megawatts of electricity in an auroral display and this can cause interference with power lines, radio and television broadcasts and satellite communications
2 people like this
@raenie (705)
• Philippines
12 Jan 07
wow. pretty informative response you have here of how the northern lights occur...thanks =) I have seen a clip about this, describing how it occurs & it truly is amazing. I do believe that understanding how something occurs makes it even more awesome. Thanks as well for including a background to its word origins =)
@buenavida (9984)
• Sweden
27 Jan 07
Yes, I see them every winter and it is amazing, they change all the time so it is difficult to stop watching them.
Here is a poem I wrote some years ago:
Aurora Borealis
I saw the Northern Lights
one winter afternoon
The sky was dark,
the lights pale red and green
dancing in the sky
like fireworks without a sound
For a moment nothing else existed
@raenie (705)
• Philippines
27 Jan 07
That is indeed very lucky of you to witness such a wonderful spectacle of nature =). If I may ask, what country do you live in? & would you know where is the best place to see it? Because I've read somewhere that seeing the Northern Lights can be pretty unpredictable...I can only imagine one must feel in witnessing this natural display (& yeah, I think that it is fitting to compare it to fireworks without sound ^_^) well, hoping that someday, I can witness it for myself!
1 person likes this
@buenavida (9984)
• Sweden
29 Jan 07
Thanks, I am glad you like the poem, I sometimes send poems to www.poetry.com - I live in northern Sweden near the Arctic Circle. By the way, today, on the 29th of January the Aurora Borealis should be very active, maybe it is visible further down too.
1 person likes this
