NORTHERN LIGHTS | AURORA | NORWAY | NATURE IN 4K #shorts

NORTHERN LIGHTS | AURORA BOREALIS | NATURE IN 4K #shorts

The aurora borealis – otherwise known as the northern lights – is a vivid demonstration of the Earth's magnetic field interacting with charged particles from the sun. It's also beautiful, and worth braving a cold night out when visiting the high northern (or southern) latitudes

Auroras are centered on the Earth's magnetic poles, visible in a roughly circular region around them. Since the magnetic and geographic poles aren't the same, sometimes the auroras are visible farther south than one might expect, while in other places it's farther north.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the auroral zone runs along the northern coast of Siberia, Scandinavia, Iceland, the southern tip of Greenland and northern Canada and Alaska. Auroras are visible south of the zone, but they are less likely to occur the farther away you go. The Southern Hemisphere auroral zone is mostly over Antarctica, or the Southern Ocean. To see the southern lights (or aurora australis), you have to go to Tasmania, and there are occasional sightings in southern Argentina or the Falklands – but those are rare. Here are some dazzling facts about these light shows.

The northern lights are much higher than GPS satellites (about 12 miles), spy planes (about 13 miles), the ozone layer (about nine to 20 miles) and satellites in high Earth orbit (22 miles). It is because the northern lights are so high up that they can be visible from several hundred miles away.

WORDS RELATED TO AURORA

Aurora Borealis.

Aurora Polaris.

aurora.

merry dancers.

polar lights.

"Things you might not know about the northern lights

You might find them in cave paintings.

You can see them from space.

They're caused by 'fox fires' — apparently.

They have an Old Norse name.

High solar activity means spectacular displays.

They can be disruptive.

You shouldn't whistle at them.

They're the 'dawn of the north'"