The Northern Lights

Saturday 6 April 2013

Hi everyone, today I will show you a wonder of nature, an unique phenomenon. I’m talking about the northern lights. This is something that fascinates many people, and I’m one of them. 

The northern lights are the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. The sun has a powerful magnetic field and is continuously emitting solar wind particles at speeds between 1 million and 3 million kilometers per hour. Some of these particles get sucked up into the Earth's magnetic field. When this happens the particles "excite" the gases in the Earth's atmosphere causing the lights that we see in the sky. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding and the intensity of the lights depends on the amount of solar wind coming into the atmosphere. 

In the northern hemisphere, places that are closest to the North Pole such as Alaska, Norway, Scotland, and northern Russia experience this phenomenon on almost every clear night. 

        The night sky is filled with mysterious green, yellow, blue, violet, pink and red lights. They also vary in form, from rays that appear to wave in the sky to arcs that go across the horizon. Sometimes the northern lights appear as a hazy veil.

They generate about 9 billion kilowatt hours of power a year; that is about ten times the amount of power that the United States uses in one year. So, it would be remarkable if scientists could somehow tap into this power supply for human use, what would solve some major environmental problems regarding current means of producing power. 

I'd love to see them live, because they are incredibly beautiful. This is one of my dreams and I really hope I can make it come true in the near future.

To see more of this beauty of nature check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBWPCvdv8Bk

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