Norway northern lights4/30/2023 ![]() In the dense, hot and deep core of the sun, hydrogen is forced together by gravity to create helium, resulting in a small release of energy. At four and a half billion years old, this giant creates energy on a humongous scale. Figure 1 – A large northern lights swirl over Kirkenes, Northern Norway lighting up the snow laden landscape below © William Copeland We begin our story on the sun While in the northern hemisphere, the lights occur over highly populated areas so are seen more frequently, such as in the northern Norwegian town of Kirkenes seen in figure 1. ![]() The reason the southern lights can often be overlooked is due to the fact that the strongest auroras occur on the Antarctic continent itself or over the surrounding oceans and land fringes where few people are located. ![]() In this article, the term northern lights will predominantly be used, but the same science applies to the southern lights that are seen around the Antarctic. The technical names for the night time displays are aurora borealis (northern lights) for the northern hemisphere and aurora australis (southern lights) for the southern hemisphere. Therefore, this article aims to make the science a little more digestible, while throwing in some astonishing facts along the way. What causes this phantom in the night skies over the high latitudes? The story is a complex riddle of scientific discoveries that are still taking place to this day, which can often make it difficult to understand what on Earth is going on. An enigma that draws thousands to the northern polar regions each year, inspiring myth, legend and an incomparable sense of awe. The Northern lights are one of mother nature’s greatest light shows.
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