Northern Lights

I love fireworks! I never want to miss the opportunity to catch them on July 4th or after a baseball game. Well I saw a new form of fireworks here in Churchill. These fireworks come from the sun. I watched them one night out in the cold and the sky was bright and sparkling. The stars were so bright and crisp. The next time I watched them from the sky dome. It is at the top of the Centre. It feels like you are outside but it is warm and toasty inside with a great view of above.

An expert on the sun and sky has been staying here with us at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. He is Roger Woloshyn, otherwise known as Starman. He gave a lecture last night about the Northern Lights and how and why they appear so brillantly in the skies here. I will try my best to relay the information.

The Northern lights are a natural light display usually seen best at night and at the polar regions (lucky I am here then). The sun is a constant star. It does not change size or temperature. It is a ball of gas that makes energy all day. There are sunspots on the sun that are getting rid of energy. These bits of dust are shot off the sun and hit our Earth's outer space which then create a halo of light around the pole. The aurora borealis, another name for the Northern Lights, are most commonly green in color. Sometimes they are pink or bright red.





























Thank you for telling me what the zastrugi looked like to you? What does the Northern Lights look like? To some of us here, we oohed and aahed and commented that it looked like a sandstorm, chalk blending, a Georgia O'Keefe painting, and shadows.
To learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_aurora