Aurora Borealis, also known as Northern Lights have always fascinated mankind. They extraordinarily paint the horizon with awe-inspiring colors and sparkle up the skies leaving its gazers speechless. People all around the world are travelling thousands of miles to watch these spectacular light shows in the earth’s atmosphere.
They are displayed in the high altitude regions of Arctic and Antarctic (aurora australis, southern lights) as high as 70 to 200 kilometers (43 to 124 miles) above the Earth’s surface. The lights are emitted when high energetic charged particles from the sun collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere. They usually appear in spirals or arcs and can be seen on roughly 20 nights a year.
Aurora Borealis has a mysterious meaning behind its name. They were named after the Roman Goddess of Dawn, Aurora and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas. This phenomenon was believed to be a sign of God and was related to supernatural powers. Study of Aurora Borealis suggests that the sounds generated by the Aurora lights seem like the noise created by claps and crackles. Their colors can change from blue to green and red.
They are mostly seen in the northern parts of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Northern Russia. They can be observed when the darkness is at its peak between 6pm and 4am.
These are not ‘packaged and sold’ phenomenon since they can never be forecasted with certainty. However for the unlucky ones that never have seen these lights please have a sneak-peak of aurora borealis in this video- http://vimeo.com/21294655