Fancy name, right? Have you ever heard about the Northern Lights? Even if the answer to this question is a no, I won’t be taken by surprise. After all, the phenomenon itself is so dreamlike that even after knowing about it, one would want to get themselves pinched to get back to reality. Thus, here’s everything you need to know about ‘The Northern Lights’ aka Aurora Borealis.
Astronomer Galileo Galilei, in the year 1616, coined the name Aurora Borealis for this spectacular phenomenon. The name Aurora Borealis is made up of two names- Aurora, the Roman Goddess of dawn and Borealis meaning the north winds. This very phenomenon has undoubtedly inspired tons of myths over the years. The Finnish word for the Northern Lights is “revontulet” – which can be translated as “fox fires”. Ancient folklore is said to be responsible for this which says that the Finns believed that the aurora was caused by a fox sweeping its tail, sending snow up into the sky. Another legend goes as, the Vikings thought that they were a bridge to Asgard, where Thor and the other gods live. They’re a thing of legends indeed!
So what exactly causes the Northern Lights?
Well, here goes a simply beautiful scientific theory that explains it all. A trigger warning (on a friendly note), you are about to be taken aback by the incredible wonders of science!
The Sun is so hot that it exists in the fourth state of matter- the plasma state. The plasma particles being highly charged can effortlessly escape the Sun’s gravitational field and barrel towards the Earth at about a million miles per hour, just like a shotgun blast full of solar hate! That’s what we call the ‘solar wind’. Mostly these mighty particles are bounced off by the Earth’s magnetosphere. But, some of them manage to make their way into the Earth at places like the North and the South pole, where the magnetosphere is weak. When these charged particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they come in contact with the gases such as oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. These gaseous elements get excited and as they calm down, they release lights with the choice of the brightest colours from the visible spectrum. Charged particles colliding with oxygen atoms give birth to the green colour of the aurora, the red comes from both oxygen and nitrogen, and the purple pinks and blues from nitrogen.
An interesting fact about it is that they’re always there in the sky. It’s the sky condition that is responsible for its latent behaviour. Some people claim that they hear the aurora, despite the fact that the aurora is so far away that it would take 5 long minutes for the sound waves to reach the person on Earth!
Places like Fairbanks in Alaska, Yellowknife in Canada, Tromso in Norway, North Sweden, Finland, Tasmania, New Zealand, etc. in the northern hemisphere are blessed with the timely grace of the Northern Lights. Before you all get too engrossed in picturing yourselves dancing to the silent tunes of the aurora, let me shake you with yet another interesting fact about these places. The night temperature there drops to a low, which is as low as -1° in summers!
The wondrous display of Northern Lights brings out the most surreal reactions from the first time spectators. For it is a visual that will sweep you off your feet. One that will overwhelm you with its dancing dazzle. One that will give you an instant rush of gratefulness towards the universe for your very existence, alongside the adrenaline and serotonin rush. Leave you with those comforting warm tears in the frosting cold; tears that will emerge out of sheer ecstasy. All in all, I have always been a dreamer but, the one dream that I have always dreamt of is to get a glimpse of Aurora… And if your dreams aren’t thrilling enough, are they even dreams?
~ Vrushali Varude (FE EXTC), Anupriya Dasgupta (SE EXTC)