But it's pretty tricky to get into the middle of the Arctic wilderness, even with a guide, so it's best to base yourself in a destination with solid infrastructure, like Fairbanks, Alaska; Yellowknife, Canada; Svalbard, Norway; Abisko National Park, in Sweden; Rovaniemi, Finland; and pretty much anywhere in Iceland. Related: Where to see the northern lights: aurora borealis guide. The best time of year to see the northern lights is between September and April, when the sky gets dark enough to see the aurora.
Northern locales experience the midnight sun, or 24 hours of daylight in the summer. The most action usually happens between 9 p. Keep the moon phases in mind, as a bright full moon might fill the night sky with light. Check local weather forecasts as well, because you won't be able to spot the aurora through the clouds. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space.
With a background in travel and design journalism, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University, she specializes in the budding space tourism industry and Earth-based astrotourism.
In her free time, you can find her watching rocket launches or looking up at the stars, wondering what is out there. Learn more about her work at www. Jump to: The history of the northern lights What are the northern lights? Are there other types of auroras? Where and when to see the northern lights Additional resources. Stefanie Waldek. The magnetic field interacts with the solar wind and guides the protons and electrons down towards Earth along the magnetic field, away from the middle of the planet and toward the north and south poles.
Because of this, we get both northern and southern lights — also known as the aurora borealis and the aurora australis. When the solar wind gets past the magnetic field and travels towards the Earth, it runs into the atmosphere. The atmosphere is like a big blanket of gas surrounding our planet, which contains lots of different particles that make up the air that we breathe and help to protect us from harmful radiation from the Sun. This puts lots of energy into the bottle, and when you open it, this energy will be released in a big stream of fizzy bubbles.
Then, the particles let out all that energy in the form of light instead of bubbles. Our eyes see green best out of all the colours, so we see green the brightest when we look at the northern lights. It is easiest to see the northern lights in winter when is it very dark at night, and also outside of cities and away from street lights. You are more likely to see them the further north you are too. Check out this great website Aurora Watch from Lancaster University — it might just help you find them!
Hello, curious kids! Ask an adult to send your question — along with your name, age and town or city where you live — to curiouskids theconversation. But as our understanding of the solar system and our place within it grew, these stories dissolved into legends and myths. These particles originate from our star - the sun. The sun is constantly pushing out a stream of electrically charged particles called the solar wind, and this travels out from the sun at between and km per second in all directions.
As the Earth travels around the sun, a small fraction of particles from the solar wind are intercepted by the planet. When these charged particles hit the atoms and molecules high up in our atmosphere, they become excited. This creates two glowing rings of auroral emission around the North and South magnetic poles, known as auroral ovals.
As they decay back to their original state, they emit distinctive colours of light. The realisation of the enormity of the universe washes over you, and you feel small in a good way and full of wonder.
These atoms become excited at different levels in the atmosphere. The most common colour seen in the Northern Lights is green. The red light we sometimes see is also caused by oxygen atoms.
These particles are higher up in the atmosphere and are subject to a lower energy red light emission.
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