The Northern Lights

History, Nature 6 Minutes

The northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are beautiful dancing waves of light that have captivated people for millennia. But for all its beauty, this spectacular light show is a rather violent event.

Energized particles from the sun slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 million mph (72 million kph), but our planet’s magnetic field protects us from the onslaught.

As Earth’s magnetic field redirects the particles toward the poles — there are southern lights, too — the dramatic process transforms into a cinematic atmospheric phenomenon that dazzles and fascinates scientists and skywatchers alike.

Though it was Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei who coined the name “aurora borealis” in 1619 — after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas — the earliest suspected record of the northern lights is in a 30,000 year old cave painting in France.

Since that time, civilizations around the world have marveled at the celestial phenomenon, ascribing all sorts of origin myths to the dancing lights. One North American Inuit legend suggests that the northern lights are spirits playing ball with a walrus head, while the Vikings thought the phenomenon was light reflecting off the armor of the Valkyrie, the supernatural maidens who brought warriors into the afterlife.

The oldest known auroral citing was written in 2600 B.C. in China: “Fu-Pao, the mother of the Yellow Empire Shuan-Yuan, saw strong lightning moving around the star Su, which belongs to the constellation of Bei-Dou, and the light illuminated the whole area.” Thousands of years later, in 1570 A.D., a drawing of the aurora depicted candles burning above the clouds.

Across the north, where the phenomena is most widely seen, there are legends and beliefs about the Northern Lights that defy reason, but go back generations. In Canada’s Northwest Territory, a tribal elder explained that, as a youngster, he recalled stories told by his grandfather that, if you listen closely, you can hear the Northern Lights. They stepped outside and heard a swishing sound, almost crackling.

Stories were told that one could “whistle” in the Northern Lights and some said you could inhale the Northern Lights and they would kill you. Still others claimed they were the spirits of children who were stillborn. The crackling sound has been claimed to be the spirits trying to communicate with you; alternatively, other legends say it is the Inuits playing a game of kicking a walrus skull around, and the crackling sound is the crunching of the snow.

Inuit Tribe Members

Sharon Shorty, a Yukon story-teller and comedian, of Tlingit, Northern Tuchone and Norwegian background, remembers her childhood walking around Teslin, Yukon with her grandmother, Carrie Jackson.

Sharon Shorty

“I could see all the ribbons in the air and Grandma would tell me, “Shhhh! Don’t look, don’t look! Bad luck, no good!” I asked, “Why can’t I look?” and she said it’s bad luck, that they are spirits. So when we’re looking at them, they are spirits – people who have passed on in a bad or hard way. That could mean a suicide or a murder or something in a bad way. This is what Tlingit people believe, and I think other nations believe that as well.”

Over the Takhini Valley in Yukon

“To me, it looks like people holding hands and it is our ancestors. They died in a bad way, are lonely, and want company. They want to take somebody from earth to be with them and they could come down and take you if you look at them or get their attention. That’s why we say never whistle at them – you’re not supposed to draw their attention because they will find you.”

Early astronomers also mentioned the northern lights in their records. A royal astronomer under Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar II inscribed his report of the phenomenon on a tablet dated to 567 B.C., for example, while a Chinese report from 193 B.C. also notes the aurora, according to NASA.

The science behind the northern lights wasn’t theorized until the turn of the 20th century. Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland proposed that electrons emitted from sunspots produced the atmospheric lights after being guided toward the poles by Earth’s magnetic field. The theory would eventually prove correct, but not until long after Birkeland’s 1917 death.

A lime-green aurora glows above Earth’s city lights in this view from the International Space Station. At the time this photo was taken, the space station was orbiting about 258 miles (415 kilometers) above Russia and the Ukraine. A portion of the space station’s solar array is visible in the top left corner of the image. (Image credit: NASA)

The bright colors of the northern lights are dictated by the chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

“Every type of atom or molecule, whether it’s atomic hydrogen or a molecule like carbon dioxide, absorbs and radiates its own unique set of colors, which is analogous to how every human being has a unique set of fingerprints,” Teets told Space.com. “Some of the dominant colors seen in aurorae are red, a hue produced by the nitrogen molecules, and green, which is produced by oxygen molecules.”

While solar wind is constant, the sun’s emissions go through a roughly 11-year cycle of activity. Sometimes there’s a lull, but other times, there are vast storms that bombard Earth with extreme amounts of energy. This is when the northern lights are at their brightest and most frequent. The last solar maximum, or period of peak activity, occurred in 2014, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), placing the next one in approximately 2025.

Despite plenty of advances in heliophysics and atmospheric science, much about the northern lights remains a mystery. For example, researchers weren’t entirely sure how the energized particles in the solar wind get accelerated to their extraordinary speeds (45 million mph) until June 2021, when a study published in the journal Nature Communications confirmed that a phenomenon called Alfvén waves gave the particles a boost. Alfvén waves are low-frequency yet powerful undulations that occur in plasma due to electromagnetic forces; the electrons that create the northern lights “surf” along these waves in Earth’s atmosphere, accelerating rapidly.

The auroras are best seen during the winter, when nights are long. Hours of patience by photographer Daniele Boffelli resulted in this image that captures both clouds and auroras in the night sky. (Image credit: Daniele Boffelli)

NASA is also on the hunt for clues about how the northern lights work. In 2018, the space agency launched the Parker Solar Probe, which is currently orbiting the sun and will eventually get close enough to “touch” the corona. While there, the spacecraft will collect information that could reveal more about the northern lights.

On Earth, the northern lights’ counterpart in the Southern Hemisphere is the southern lights — they are physically the same and differ only in their location. As such, scientists expect them to occur simultaneously during a solar storm, but sometimes the onset of one lags behind the other.

The Southern Lights over Australia (Auror Australis)

“One of the more challenging aspects of nightside aurorae involves the comparison of the aurora borealis with the aurora australis,” said Steven Petrinec, a physicist at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin who specializes in magnetospheric and heliospheric physics.

“While some auroral emissions occur in both hemispheres at the same magnetic local time, other emissions appear in opposing sectors in the two hemispheres at different times — for example, pre-midnight in the Northern Hemisphere and post-midnight in the Southern Hemisphere,” Petrinec told Space.com.

The hemispheric asymmetry of the aurora is due in part to the sun’s magnetic field interfering with Earth’s magnetic field, but research into the phenomenon is ongoing.

Another aurora-like occurrence on Earth is STEVE (“Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement”). Like the northern and southern lights, STEVE is a glowing atmospheric phenomenon, but it looks slightly different from its undulating auroral counterparts. “These emissions appear as a narrow and distinct arc, are typically purple in color and often include a green picket-fence structure that slowly moves westward,” Petrinec said.

STEVE is also visible from lower latitudes, closer to the equator, than the auroras.

A 2019 study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters discovered that STEVE is the result of two mechanisms: The mauve streaks are caused by the heating of charged particles in the upper atmosphere, while the picket-fence structure results from electrons falling into the atmosphere. The latter process is the same driver of the aurora, making STEVE a special kind of aurora hybrid.

More info: https://www.space.com/15139-northern-lights-auroras-earth-facts-sdcmp.html

Unknown's avatar

Published by NebraskaFilly

Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

Published

197 thoughts on “The Northern Lights”

  1. Entire article: “April 27 (UPI) — The City of Charleston, Ind., announced a loose chicken dubbed “Charleston’s Most Wanted” has been safely apprehended after several days on the lam. The city posted a “Charleston’s Most Wanted” poster to Facebook on Monday seeking information about a fugitive foul dubbed “Chicken Sue” after being spotted in locations including fast food restaurant parking lots and a local car wash.

    Charlestown Mayor Treva Hodges told the Courier Journal newspaper that the “little booger” had been seen crossing a busy highway and officials were concerned Chicken Sue could end up as roadkill. Hodges said the chicken was safely apprehended Tuesday evening and spent time in a cage in the mayor’s office on Wednesday before being turned over to New Washington Animal Services.

    The city said in a Facebook post that Chicken Sue will be held as a stray “for a period of time” to give her owner the chance to come forward before the hen is rehomed.”

    Liked by 1 person

  2. that’s right! someone in a comment section about the SCOTUS leak reminded me…Justice Breyer’s retirement was ALSO leaked before he wanted to make an announcement…

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Morning or afternoon. LOL

    Saw the drama last night. You can’t tell me that leak wasn’t planned.

    Seems we are circling back.

    Now its my body my choice again.
    And we now know what a woman is. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Nothing to see here move along

    Liked by 2 people

  8. TGP headlines

    “Decision to Abort a Child” – Biden’s Handlers Whisk Him Away After He Admits Abortion is Murder in Off-Script Remarks

    Coincidence? Planned Parenthood and Abortion Industry Announce $150 Million Spend on Midterms Just Hours Before SCOTUS Leak

    The Timing Was Intentional: Roe v Wade Leak Was Left’s Answer to “2000 Mules” Documentary Release Today that Proves 2020 Election Was Stolen—– Yup

    “Burn It All Down!” – Democrats, Leftists Call for Violence Following Leaked SCOTUS Abortion Ruling—- Ahhh the loving left

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Liked by 1 person

  16. EXCERPT: “If Musk unlocks Twitter as promised, the “politically correct” will lose their last remaining tool of influence. If suppression of free speech is their final gasp for air, Musk just stepped on their throats.

    So the advantage in the culture war is shifting quickly. Previously dispirited Americans now see how fragile these paper tigers have always been.

    It’s unfortunate that it took years of online smear campaigns, the installment of CRT training programs across the country, and social media companies interfering with the 2020 presidential election for the pendulum to swing. The weak can only win when you willingly play by their rules, and we willingly played by their rules for far too long.

    At this point, the far Left may completely self-destruct because when ideology becomes a religion, its adherents never know when to stop. Now many are literally paying for it. The devout believers at Disney have just lost special tax and land privileges because they so desperately want to preserve the demonic anti-sacrament of grooming schoolchildren. Public school officials in Virginia suffered a similar fate last November when their infatuation with skin color cost Democrats executive and legislative elections in the commonwealth.

    This entire campaign has always had an expiration date. Its existence was never to create a more equal society but to advance the social status of corporate and political leaders and to defeat the opposition. Wokeism has never bettered anyone. In fact, it has fractured families, communities, companies, and institutions across this country. Some of which will not recover.

    But neither will the woke Left. Their stranglehold on public messaging has weakened. It is now a losing strategy.”

    https://www.outkick.com/woke-elon-musk-culture-war/

    Liked by 1 person

  17. “migrants” lie about their age…no kidding?
    FTA
    “The Guardianship Service of the FPS Justice carried out 2515 age tests in order to verify these declarations. A total of 2435 decisions were made: at the end of the test, 69% were declared adults and 31% were declared minors.”

    The revelation came as Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi announced a slew of new objectives aimed at “streamlining” Belgium’s approach to welcoming and catering to child migrants.

    Migrants often lie about their ages when applying for asylum in European countries, as Infowars Europe has frequently reported.

    Employees of asylum centers in the Netherlands have warned many North African criminals pose as ‘unaccompanied minors’ to exploit the system and gain free accommodation.

    In the United Kingdom, authorities recently determined more than half of migrants claiming to be children under the age of 18 were actually adults.

    In 2017, the Swedish government tested nearly 8,000 migrants purporting to be underage and found roughly 6,600 were adults.

    Tests conducted in Belgium and Germany have yielded similar results.

    https://europe.infowars.com/belgium-reveals-7-out-of-10-child-migrants-actually-adults/

    Liked by 1 person

      1. it is. she looks a lot better than she has in the past.

        altho the comments to the story are brutal–like the color signifies all the blood she has on her hands

        Liked by 1 person

  20. okay…I am gonna hit the sofa an watch some tv and quilt.

    kea, I sent you an invitation to be an author and write some stories to share, if you want to, and CM? that’s an open invitation to you too!
    I understand everyone’s time constraints…so no pressure–but if anyone wants to contribute stories, we’d love to hear them!
    I’ll repost this invite in the morning.
    Good Night all!

    Liked by 2 people

Comments are closed.