O Auroras!

??More than 2,000 years ago, Ezekiel in the Old Testament mentioned that he saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber (Ezekiel 1:4, KJV).

????? Ancient Roman and Greek astronomers obsessively studied the phenomenon. The ancient Chinese believed it was caused by fights between dragons. In fact, it was the legendary Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei who named the phenomenon after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas.

I am, of course, talking about aurora borealis??, more commonly known as the Northern Lights.

I have been fascinated with aurora borealis, and its southern hemisphere counterpart, aurora australis aka the Southern Lights, ever since my science teacher in secondary school described the mystique of the lights and its dazzling beauty.

I still remember his explanation. Solar flares ?? from the sunspots on our sun's surface emit electromagnetic radiation. These charged particles then reach Earth's magnetic field, most prominently at the Poles, and interact with gases, especially oxygen and nitrogen, in our atmosphere to create that magical light show in the sky.

A Hollywood movie ?? called Frequency used the mystical power of the Northern Lights as a plot device where a man communicated with his deceased father using a 2-way radio, and changed the course of his own tragic life.

??Going to places like Norway, Iceland, New Zealand and Shetland Islands have always been on my bucket list ?? mainly because I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the auroras.

These past few days have seen a series of unusually strong solar flares causing geomagnetic storms on Earth, and creating displays of aurora borealis as well as aurora australis visible from many places, including Switzerland.??

I am heading out to the Geneva lake ?? area tonight between 10pm to 2am. I will turn my gaze towards the northern sky and hopefully catch a glimpse of the alluring aurora borealis.

P.S: Did you know that 2024 is a good year for aurora-spotting opportunities?

P.P.S: Can you guess what is the rarest colour of the Northern Lights?