As we near solar maximum — a period of heightened solar activity within the sun’s 11-year solar cycle — the question on everyone’s lips is “Where should I go to see the northern lights“? The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are caused by energetic particles from the sun. When they hit Earth our magnetic field funnels them toward the poles (we have southern lights, or aurora australis, in the southern hemisphere too). All you need to see them is the right conditions, patience and a little bit of luck. While…
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Watch extremely rare ‘aurora curls’ ripple through the northern lights (video)
Astrophotographer Jeff Dai, captured a remarkably rare sight while watching the northern lights on Jan.16, above Kerid Crater, south Iceland. The rippling green aurora curls dancing overhead result from large waves traveling through Earth’s magnetic field, causing our magnetosphere to “ring like a bell”, according to Spaceweather.com. “Imagine that Earth’s magnetic field is like a guitar string,” Xing-Yu Li, a ULF wave expert at Peking University in Beijing, China, told Dai, as reported on Spaceweather.com. In this image, “we are seeing vibrations in that string.” Li estimates that their wavelength…
Read MoreThe next 4 to 5 years will be ‘most favorable’ for aurora sightings. Here’s why
The 2023/24 “aurora season” has begun and is ramping up to something quite spectacular in the next few years. Here’s why aurora activity is on the rise and why now is the best time to plan your northern lights adventure. Auroras have intrigued humans for millennia with their wispy ribbons of light dancing across the sky. Known as the aurora borealis or the northern lights in the northern hemisphere and aurora australis or southern lights in the southern hemisphere, this spectacle is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena in…
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