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In 1621, a French scientist, Pierre Gassendi, saw the lights in the north and named them after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora. He added the word 'borealis' for the Roman god of the north wind, Boreas. The lights became known to scientists as the aurora borealis.
Stretching hundreds of miles above the planet is the atmosphere (a huge ocean of air). The atmosphere contains many gases, but the main ones are nitrogen and oxygen. The earth, which is an enormous magnet, pulls particles from the sun toward the sky above its magnetic poles. The aurora borealis is caused by high-speed particles from the Sun striking these gases. The particles make the gases glow. The result - shimmering lights dance across the dark night sky.
Auroras can appear to be: |
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ARC
An evenly curved arch of light with a smooth lower edge that may extend from horizon to horizon. |
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BAND
Similar to an arc, only folded or kinked on its lower edge. |
| Arcs and Bands can be described as 'quiet', 'active', 'streaming' (when a sudden increase in brightness passes horizontally along the display) or 'flaming' (when sudden bursts of light appear at the bottom of the form, flare up to the top and disappear). They also may be 'rayed' (made up of rays) or 'homogeneous' (uniform washes of light). |
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PATCH
A small, cloud like area of auroral light. Sometimes a patch will flash, or pulse. |
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CORONA
Rayed arcs or bands seen from directly underneath, so the light seems to beam out like a sunburst in all directions. |
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RAY
A thin beam or shaft of bright light that hangs more or less vertically. A ray is actually a tight curl, or eddy, of light seen from the side. |
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VEIL
A large, featureless expanse of light that sometimes covers the entire sky. It may be white or, in exceptional cases, red. |
| The shape, color, and brilliance depend in part on where you are, what time it is and what is happening on the Sun. |
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Auroras can be credited with keeping people's spirits up in the north during midwinter when the sun doesn't shine. Auroras can be so bright that people can read by their light. However, no matter how bright, you can still see the stars twinkling through the light, giving the Auroras an even more magical appearance. This is the 'stuff' that creates legends.
"He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light."
Sir Walter Scott, 1802
Gases in the atmosphere glow with various colours when they are hit by electrons. The colours that appear depend not only on which gases are struck, but also on how far they are from Earth. When the electrons in solar winds spiral down near Earth striking oxygen atoms, a deep red lights up the dark night sky. When nitrogen molecules are hit, a bright pink appears. Both of these substances can be found in the atmosphere 100- 150 miles from the ground. |
Closer to earth, oxygen atoms will flash a greenish white, greenish yellow or green. Oxygen atoms are more "excitable" than other atoms in our atmosphere so this is the most common aurora colour.
Nitrogen molecules exist 80 -100 miles from earth and they will light the sky up in shades of blue and violet. The auroras, however, are more difficult to see against the dark sky. With the right conditions in a light sky, these auroras are spectacular!
Pink bands of light will appear in the lower part of the sky when the nitrogen and oxygen molecules are contacted between 60-80 miles from earth.
Smaller amounts of neon, helium, hydrogen, and argon are in our atmosphere and they all shine with different colours. Because they are in a much smaller concentration, they are rarely seen, but can appear as splashes of light within an aurora.
The brightest auroras appear when the atmosphere is hit with enormous charges of solar wind. When sunspots appear and solar flares erupt on the Sun, larger amounts of solar wind strike the atmosphere. We are all able to witness spectacular displays of auroras every 11 years. The greatest number of sunspots appear every 11 years with 1986 being the beginning of the last cycle. As the sunspots multiply, gigantic solar flares explode. The flares burst from the sun's surface and flame up like pools of burning gasoline. One flare may be as large as 12 Earths. Clouds of hot gases billow out, and geysers of solar wind blast through space. Hundreds of millions of tons of these particles plunge towards Earth and enter our atmosphere striking the gases again and again. People living far away from both magnetic poles are able to witness these spectacular auroras. The next year in the cycle should be in 1997/98. Look towards the heavens!
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The Legends of the Lights
Before we came to this religion
They used to meet with strange things
Not seen by ordinary people.
The land moved, the rocks moved.
They used to meet with strange strange, things.
Inuit drum song
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- The Eskimos of the lower Yukon River in Alaska described auroras as the dancing souls of their favourite animals: deer, seal, salmon, and beluga whales.
- The Finns believed them magical "fire foxes" that lit up the sky with sparks that flew from their glistening fur.
- The people of the Hebrides knew them as "nimble men" shining fairies playing joyfully.
- The Scottish people believed the lights "merry dancers".
- The Swedes have described the lights throughout the centuries as dancers doing the polka or a folk dance.
- Old-timers in French Canada knew them as "marionettes."
- An old tale from Estonia describes them as a glow from a celestial wedding, in which the horses and sleds of the guests all shine with a mysterious radiance.
- In Scandinavia folklore the lights are said to be the final resting place for the spirits of their unmarried women. They busy themselves above mountain Konnunsuo by making fires, cooking fish, dancing and waving their white-gloved hands. "The women in the north are hovering in the air," or "Sibylle is burning her woolen blanket," the Finns used to say. Many cultures believe the aurora represent the entry point to 'The Land of Souls'.
- Some cultures believe the lights to be the actual spirits of their dead.
- The Chuvah people of central Asia identified the lights as the god or goddess Suratan-tura (Birth-giving Heaven); it was said that the sky gave birth to a son when the lights rolled and writhed. This deity was called upon to ease women through the pains of labour.
- The Japanese believed the lights to be connected to the life-giving mysteries of conception. Japanese honeymooners visiting northern Canada relate the legend, "A child conceived in the spell of the lights will be fortunate in life."
- The Lakota Sioux thought the aurora might be the future generations at play, waiting to be born.
- An old Chinese record (2600 B.C.) records "The mother of the Yellow Emperor saw a big lightning circulating around the Su star of Bei Don (the Big Dipper) with lights shining all over the field and then became pregnant."
- When the Northern light is burning, the seed will be abundant was a belief held in many cultures to explain the earth's fruit fullness.
- "If the sky is divided in half by auroral displays, animals will be plentiful in the area the next day," was a belief held by the Nunamiut Eskimos.
- The aurora has been a helping hand to cure disease and was called upon by the most powerful of the Inuit Shamans as a spirit. Inuit healers made "spirit journeys" into the lights to obtain advice and rescue souls from death.
- As recently as the 1950s, a healer on Kodiak Island, Alaska, relied on the light to cure heart ailments. The patient was held up to the lights and something was 'pulled from his chest'.
- In 1805, the Lakota Sioux used the spirits of the northern lights to show them the way to revive a long forgotten ritual. "When the elders emerged from their tipis to dance, many saw ghosts dancing with them."
- The Finnish also believed that the lights were the result of the war being fought between the Archangel Michael and Beelzebub.
- Other cultures have related in their writings that the lights are caused by the souls who died from violence (especially warriors) who continue to fight even after death. The red auroral are often referred to as blood auroral for this reason. A red auroral would often be followed by a calamity on earth - death, pestilence, assassination, armed combat . . .
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by Davidialuk Alasua Amittu
"The Aurora Borealis
Decapitating a Young Man"
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Even today in the north, children are told not to whistle or sing to the northern lights. "The lights will come and take you away. They are not to be trusted." Many of the Inuit carvings display the Aurora Borealis as decapitating heads of unsuspecting people.
To people who lived in the spirit-filled world of traditional cultures, one fact was clear. The forces that dance in the polar dark are awe-inspiring - alien, frightening, uncontrollable and immensely active. |
FIRE & ICE AURORA TOURS
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