Dance of the Northern Lights
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The northern lights are heavenly poetry, a magical dance of flames on the night sky. Almost all Norwegians have seen the beautiful rays, glowing bands and curtains of lights. The Lillehammer Olympic logo was inspired by the northern lights that were long a source of superstition, myths and fairy tales.
by Olav Grinde
You see a greenish glow near the northwestern horizon. The light has a slow pulse – it lights and fades, lights and fades. Suddenly an arch leaps across the sky. Another, and yet others. Waves move across the vast arches, as if they were curtains of light swaying in an unseen wind. If you are lucky, you may see a red and violet tinge at top and bottom, or colours interweaving. Suddenly rays shoot out in all directions. Gradually the light dies out. You are left in darkness to wonder.
Northern lights appear most frequently in two ring-formed zones 23 degrees north and south of the magnetic poles. The northern one passes along the coast of Norway. On rare occasions, fear-stricken viewers have seen northern lights as far south as the Mediterranean Sea. It is clear that the magnetic poles have moved through the ages, and thus also the scene of the northern lights. The Vikings saw northern lights near Greenland, but rarely in Norway.
Aristotle describes the northern lights in “Meteorologia”. A Norse manuscript written approx. 1230, “The King’s Mirror”, attempts an explanation. The author believed the sun lip up the night sky at the world’s edge – and Greenland was quite near the edge.
Quantum physics gave a more accurate explanation of the beautiful lights in the sky. By photographing northern lights from different vantage points, researchers were able to place the play of lights 80–130 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
The sun is the cause, but not in the way once believed. High-energy gas particles constantly collide in the sun’s atmosphere, breaking down atoms. Electrical particles are slung out into space forming the solar wind, a plasma composed of protons and free electrons. The Earth’s magnetic field bends these particles into the upper atmosphere, where they excite atoms that in turn give off the play of light that we admire with uplifted eyes.
Unfortunately, the heavenly performance is only given during the winter on clear nights. So if you’re travelling north of the Arctic Circle summertime, you will just have to make do with the midnight sun.
