The Northern Lights and The Midnight Sun
Illuminating the Northern Lights
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? no it's simply plasma streaming out of pockets in the sun's coronas and being hurled, by the solar wind, against the earth's atmosphere where the magnetosphere distorts the particles and they quantum leap, becoming light. The result is the Aurora Borealis, better known as the Northern Lights. Nature's most spectacular son et lumiere sees a morphing phosphorescent palette of vermilion, cadmium and emerald painted across the night sky to a sporadic 'clicking' soundtrack.
The lights have played important roles in national folklore an superstition, across the pond in Ontario's Hudson Bay the Inuit saw them as torches to light the path of spirits en route to the heavens, while the Vikings had them down as a posthumous reflection of departed warriors. Theses astral illuminations are found at both poles, though what's peculiar to Norway 's is the dominance of greens, owing to 'leaping' oxygen particles, rather than Nitrogen - which produces the reds.
Enjoy more than 1700 photos, post questions and even get live satellite data on viewing conditions; this site proves the definitive guide to the Northern Lights.
www.northern-lights.no
Norway
- Great Norwegians
- Lonely Planet
- Norwegian Embassy
- Norwegian-Scenery
- Norway Tourism Guide
- Official Bergen Guide
- The Northern Lights
- History of the Vikings
