Post by afanoffiona on Apr 17, 2007 22:01:43 GMT -5
Hey Everyone!
I had mentioned how beautiful Azi's song To Say Goodbye to You is. However, there is this line at the beginning:
Wish I could whistle down the northern lights.
I had always wondered. What are the Northern Lights? Thankfully, in an age where google will answer just about any question you could think up, I was able to find some information:
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What causes them?
Northern lights originate from our sun. During large explosions and flares, huge quantities of solar particles are thrown out of the sun and into deep space. These plasma clouds travel through space with speeds varying from 300 to 1000 kilometers per second.
But even with such speeds (over a million kilometer per hour), it takes these plasma clouds two to three days to reach our planet. When they are closing in on Earth, they are captured by Earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere) and guided towards Earth's two magnetic poles; the geomagnetic south pole and the geomagnetic north pole.
On their way down towards the geomagnetic poles, the solar particles are stopped by Earth's atmosphere, which acts as an effective shield against these deadly particles.
When the solar particles are stopped by the atmosphere, they collide with the atmospheric gases present, and the collision energy between the solar particle and the gas molecule is emitted as a photon - a light particle. And when you have many such collisions, you have an aurora - lights that may seem to move across the sky.
In order for an observer to actually see the aurora with the naked eye, about a 100 million photons are required. [From www.northern-lights.no/].
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Not only are they really interesting, but this same website has a slide show:
www.northern-lights.no/active/Slideshow/slideshow
This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! The colors, the night sky, just everything is breathtaking!:
Hope this was interesting. All of the photos came from this website:
www.northern-lights.no/
There are many more beautiful photos there as well!
I will try to get some other photos posted as I find them. Now I know one more thing I want to do before I die...see the northern lights!
God Bless,
afanoffiona
I had mentioned how beautiful Azi's song To Say Goodbye to You is. However, there is this line at the beginning:
Wish I could whistle down the northern lights.
I had always wondered. What are the Northern Lights? Thankfully, in an age where google will answer just about any question you could think up, I was able to find some information:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What causes them?
Northern lights originate from our sun. During large explosions and flares, huge quantities of solar particles are thrown out of the sun and into deep space. These plasma clouds travel through space with speeds varying from 300 to 1000 kilometers per second.
But even with such speeds (over a million kilometer per hour), it takes these plasma clouds two to three days to reach our planet. When they are closing in on Earth, they are captured by Earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere) and guided towards Earth's two magnetic poles; the geomagnetic south pole and the geomagnetic north pole.
On their way down towards the geomagnetic poles, the solar particles are stopped by Earth's atmosphere, which acts as an effective shield against these deadly particles.
When the solar particles are stopped by the atmosphere, they collide with the atmospheric gases present, and the collision energy between the solar particle and the gas molecule is emitted as a photon - a light particle. And when you have many such collisions, you have an aurora - lights that may seem to move across the sky.
In order for an observer to actually see the aurora with the naked eye, about a 100 million photons are required. [From www.northern-lights.no/].
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not only are they really interesting, but this same website has a slide show:
www.northern-lights.no/active/Slideshow/slideshow
This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! The colors, the night sky, just everything is breathtaking!:
Hope this was interesting. All of the photos came from this website:
www.northern-lights.no/
There are many more beautiful photos there as well!
I will try to get some other photos posted as I find them. Now I know one more thing I want to do before I die...see the northern lights!
God Bless,
afanoffiona
I like how's PEI's website calls it the gentle island!