Northern Lights

 

The northern lights are brilliant, colorful illuminations in the sky caused when particles swept along by solar winds impact the Earth's atmosphere. They occur primarily in the polar regions. In the northern Polar region they are also called *Aurora Borealis*, while near the South pole, where they are slightly less common, they are known as *aurora australis*.

 

19.1 SCIENCE BEHIND THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:

 

The northern lights result from the constant give and take between the sun and planet Earth. Particles are released by molecular activity that takes place on the surface of the Sun. The storm of particles thus released - consisting of electrons, protons and ions - set off what is known as solar wind. When these particles collide with atoms in the upper layer of Earth's atmosphere, the earth magnetic field redirects the charged particles toward the poles, where they continue to move down through the atmosphere, illuminating air molecules along the way. The majority of northern lights displays appear between 65 and 400 km above the Earth's surface.

 

19.2 THE FREQUENCY, SPEED, DURATION AND VISIBILITY:

 

Northern lights depend on the strength of the solar winds and activity on the surface of the Sun. An active cycle , also known as a Sunspot cycle, can last for 11 years; it is during these phases that northern lights are most commonly observed.

 Solar winds propel the particles at great speed as much as 3 million km per hour. It only takes the particles 4 days to travel 93 million miles from the sun to the earth.

During periods of maximum activity it may even be possible to observe northern lights in the middle latitude of Europe and continental United States.

 

19.3 HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:

 

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.

Modern science first began to understand the northern lights in the 18th century. the connection to the Earth's magnetic field was elaborated over the next 100 years. The theory connecting Northern light to solar winds and geometric storms was first developed in the early 20th century and confirmed by data gathered during the first space flights 50 years later.

 

19.4 BEST PLACES TO SEE NORTHERN LIGHTS:

 

(I) Tromso, Norway: Based in the heart of the aurora zone in the Norwegian Arctic, the city is widely regarded as one of the world's best places to see the Northern Lights.

(II) Swedish Lapland

(III) Reykjavik, Iceland

(IV) Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland

(V) Ilulissat, Greenland

(VI) Svalbard, Norway.

In India we can rarely see Ladakh . Last time it were seen on April 22 and 23.

 

19.5 BELIEFS OF PEOPLE:

 

Many tribal peoples believe them to be a message from gods and spirits. For medieval Europeans they were bad omens warning of coming disasters. In other cultures though, they are viewed as women's of impending disaster. The warlike Vikings of Scandinavia and the highland clans of Scotland thought  that the lights meant that a huge battle  was taking place somewhere in the world. Many of the names for the Northern lights from later medieval and modern periods are crammingly descriptive. In Scandinavia, they are called the herring flash, because the flickering lights resemble a school of fish swimming by. Finns call them fox fire, relating the arcs of color to the burning train of folklore foxes made of firelights lucky?

For some people, they're a sign of good luck. For others, they're the souls of dead ancestors.

 

— Team Yuva Aaveg

(Deeksha Yadav)

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