Glowing like strange alien signals, The Northern Lights near the Arctic are mind-blowingly magical.
Look out for The Northern Lights in high-latitude regions near the Arctic, like Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia. The sky needs to be super dark for them to show up, so between 10pm and 2am is the best time to see them.
The dancing Northern Lights, also known as The Aurora Borealis, are caused by solar wind-charged particles colliding with Earth’s magnetic field and atmospheric gases (oxygen and nitrogen).
Different colours are produced by different gases. Green (most common) shows up when particles hit oxygen at lower altitudes. Rare red lights are caused by high-altitude oxygen, while blue/purple comes from nitrogen.
While the lights look like they’re just above the clouds, they’re actually way up above planes, closer to satellites, at hundreds of kilometres from Earth.
Some people who’ve seen the lights say they make a crackling, whistling or hissing sound! Scientists think this could be caused by an electrical discharge.
There are records of people seeing The Northern Lights from way back in 2600 BC, according to The Bureau of Meteorology. Vikings actually believed the lights were caused by reflections off the armour of their gods.
Astronauts on the International Space Station actually fly through the aurora. From where they are, the lights look like a huge curtain reaching into space.
In Finnish folklore, the lights are called ‘fox fires’ and are caused by a magical fox sweeping its tail and sending sparks into the sky.
Earth isn’t the only planet that has auroras like The Northern Lights. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all have auroras too.
The geomagnetic storms that cause auroras can also mess with our technology, sometimes interrupting power grids and radio communications.
