So we
have these dancing lights in the North, the Arctic, as well as in the South,
the Antarctic. The lights are drawn to the magnetic poles, and only
when the solar wind is extremely strong, a geomagnetic storm, the lights can be seen
reaching out far beyond the polar circles North and South.
Such an
extreme solar wind was visible by NASA on July 12th and the
prediction was that these solar flares would reach the Earth on July 14th.
Though I wouldn’t be able to see the lights as far as where I live, I did experience
the Northern lights in December 2008 when I visited the Lofoten Islands in
Norway with Oceanwide Expeditions.
It was
really tricky to photograph this spectacle due to so much artificial light of
lampposts at Svolvaer, and we weren’t always able to leave the ship at night. I
did take detailed photographs that night in the harbour of Svolvaer, though the
aurora was quite diffuse and it was barely visible with the naked eye. Later on
during the trip, I took a shot of the dancing lights, vividly and bright, away
from the lampposts, though my camera gave me some trouble to get the right
picture… This was close to Tysfjord.
The indigenous
people of the North always thought that the lights were spirits, the ancestors
of old. It’s not strange to envision their imagination and thoughts: the glows
can be vague and light up now and again like nothing else you have ever seen. The
green glow is quite common (oxygen particles), the red and blue glows are rare (nitrogen particles ). I did miss the orchestra that is usually
accompanied by the dancing of the lights in movies! I wish to see them again someday as curtains shifting though the night.
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| Northern lights Norway December 2008 near Tysfjord |
In the meantime,
we are reaching the next Solar Maximum, meaning that the Sun will be at the end
of an 11-year solar cycle, reaching a climax of short explosions resulting in
extreme solar flares, called coronal mass ejections. The predictions are that Solar
Maximum will be reached around 2013-2014. Solar activity around sun spots is
already increasing rapidly, as can be seen on the website of NASA, tracking
solar activity. In the autumn of 2012 around the next equinox, when auroras
tend to happen more often, I will travel to Finland and I am silently hoping
for a solar burst at that exact moment! Yes, it’s true, the Sun has a
heartbeat.
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| Details of the Northern lights at Svolvaer Norway December 2008 |
I just discovered that on July 19th there was another huge coronal mass ejection, though this one wasn’t directed at the Earth. Another proof that solar activity is quite hot…
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| Still of flare 335 Angstrom ultraviolet light. NASA July 12, 2012 |
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| Medium-size crop of AIA 171 and HMI Magnetogram image. NASA July 12, 2012 |
