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Tag: northern lights

  • Aurora Borealis Could Be Lighting Up The Lower 48

    The Northern Lights might just give the lower states, predicted all the way to Colorado and possibly Washington, Illinois, and Michigan, a dazzling display thanks to a recent solar flare.

    That is for those states who have clear skies! The colorful, stunning lights of the aurora borealis are forecasted for Thursday and Friday, and could be putting on quite the show for those who haven’t had the opportunity to see this amazing display before. They are common in Alaska and the North Pole and South Pole, however.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said, “The CME [coronal mass ejection] is forecast to set off G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm activity through January 9 and 10,” NOAA wrote on its prediction center site on Wednesday. “Aurora watchers should be ready.”

    The northern lights are caused by particles sent from the sun when a solar flare bursts away. Those charged particles hit earth’s atmosphere near the poles, where the magnetic fields are closest to the planet. When they intermingle with earth’s magnetic field a light show of unbelievable colors and lights can be seen.

    “These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground,” NASA said in a statement. “When intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.”

    Keep your eyes peeled for an amazing light show, compliments of the sun.

    Image via NASA , 2

  • Time-Lapse Video Captures Northern Lights

    Time-Lapse Video Captures Northern Lights

    Canadian photographer Richard Gottardo recently spent 7 hours in Southern Alberta, capturing the remarkable color changes displayed by the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, which were seen over the Rocky Mountains.

    The aurorae, from the Latin word for “sunrise,” and also the name of the Roman goddess of dawn, is a natural light display in the sky that can be viewed particularly in the high-latitude Arctic and Antarctic regions. The aurora borealis, or aurora australis, as it is known in the southern hemisphere, is caused by the collision of charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere, also called the thermosphere.

    Below is Gottardo’s clip:

    The colliding particles, which originate in the magnetosphere, are directed by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere. Most aurorae occur in a small band known as the auroral zone, which is typically 3° to 6° in latitudinal extent, and at all local times or longitudes. The auroral zone is typically 10° to 20° from the magnetic pole, which is defined by the axis of the Earth’s magnetic dipole. Although, during a geomagnetic storm, the auroral zone expands to lower latitudes.

    Below is a clip of the aurora australis, captured by the crew of Expedition 29, on board the International Space Station. The shots were taken on September 17, 2011, during an ascending pass from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia, over the Indian Ocean:

    The aurora borealis most often occurs near the equinoxes. The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree Native American tribe of Canada call this phenomenon the “Dance of the Spirits,” an in Medieval Europe, the aurorae were commonly seen to be a sign from God.

    Human persistence of vision allows the playback of roughly 24 pictures per second, in succession, to resemble what can be perceived as being normal motion. The more images inserted into a one second timeline, also called overcranking, the “slower” the scene will appear upon playback. Time-lapse photography, on the other hand, is an extreme form of undercranking, to where a very small amount of frames are run together, producing an illusion of fast motion upon normal playback.

    Image via YouTube.

  • Aurora Borealis Make Spectacular Show in North U.S.

    Aurora borealis or Northern lights made a spectacular appearance in the skies of Northern Montana and Minnesota last night, and could possibly make another appearance tonight. This video was taken over Ontario, Canada on Tuesday night, as the aurora borealis made their appearance there.

    The phenomenon is caused by solar particles entering the earth’s upper atmosphere. Variations in color depend on the type of gas particles colliding with each other. The particle collisions happen between 50 and 400 miles above the earth’s surface. Bob King of universetoday.com explained it this way:

    “The arrival of a powerful solar wind in excess of 375 miles per second (600 km/second) from a coronal mass ejection shocked the Earth’s magnetic sheath last night beginning around 9 p.m. CDT. The sun’s magnetic field, embedded in the wind, pointed sharply southward, allowing eager electrons and protons to worm their way past our magnetic defenses and excite the atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. Voila! Northern lights.”

    According to aurora-borealis.us, auroras occur in both hemispheres, and the aurora in the northern hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The aurora borealis gets its name from the mythical Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. The aurora borealis can often be seen on the northern horizon; it frequently appears as a reddish glow, as if the sun were rising in the wrong direction. The aurora borealis is most often seen during the months of September, October, March, and April.

    So, where can you get a piece of aurora action? While obviously the northern U.S. is sometimes lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this natural wonder, Fairbanks, Alaska, is known as one of the best places in the world to see the aurora borealis. It usually appears in the sky as light green, light yellow, and pink wisps, curtains, pillars, pinwheels, and haloes of light that seem to wave and vibrate. Amazing!

    Image via youtube