Aurora Imagined

Have you ever seen an aurora?
(Auroras are radiant emissions, such as Northern Lights or Southern Lights.)

This post will help you imagine an aurora, if you've never seen one.

One way to imagine (or get a mental picture) of auroras is to look at photographs.  But auroras also move and sometimes even dance (the Inuit in Alaska have a folk belief that auroras are the dancing spirits of their ancestors), so viewing videos of auroras will help your imagination really soar!  Another way to imagine auroras is by reading or listening to how people describe auroras.

To get a mental picture of auroras:
1. Look at the photographs in this post
2. Go to the "Aurora Videos" gadget in the top right of this blog for rotating videos from YouTube
3. Scroll down below the photographs in this post for another video I recommend
4. Read an excerpt from a poem about the Northern Lights, at the end of this post  


Aurora with the Moon [1]:

Pink and green aurora [1]:

Blue aurora [1]:

Aurora seen from above Earth [1]:

Aurora Australis, the southern belle (Southern Lights) [1]:

Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, from above Earth [3]:

Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, as seen from the International Space Station [2]:

Highlighted video (also see the "Aurora Videos" gadget):

Northern Lights of Alaska (Aurora Borealis)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoYiPul1WvI

This video, with original music, first shows an animation of solar flares becoming solar wind [4], which then causes Northern Lights.  At the end, it also shows footage of a real, silvery-white, dancing aurora.   

A poem excerpt:

The Ballad of the Northern Lights

by Robert W. Service

http://www.robertwservice.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=66

"Oh, it was wild and weird and wan, and ever in camp o' nights
We would watch and watch the silver dance of the mystic Northern Lights.
And soft they danced from the Polar sky and swept in primrose haze;
And swift they pranced with their silver feet, and pierced with a blinding blaze.
They danced a cotillion in the sky; they were rose and silver shod;
It was not good for the eyes of man--'twas a sight for the eyes of God.
It made us mad and strange and sad, and the gold whereof we dreamed
Was all forgot, and our only thought was of the lights that gleamed."

This poem is about a man who went north looking for gold, but 

found a far greater fortune: Aurora, the Northern Lights!

~~~~~~~~~~

[1] NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/coolpics.html

[2] NASA HumanSpaceFlight images:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-6/html/iss006e18372.html

[3] Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cms/imagedb/albums/userpics/aurora_australis.jpg

[4] This page explains solar wind: http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/SolarWind.htm

{The End}