Flowing Auroras Over Norway
Tor Even Mathisen; Music: Per Wollen; Vocals: Silje Beate Nilssen
Have you ever seen an aurora?
Auroras are occurring again with increasing frequency.
With the Sun being
unusually dormant over the past three years, the amount of Sun-induced auroras has also been unusually low.
More recently, however, our Sun has become increasingly active and
exhibiting a greater abundance of
sunspots,
flares, and
coronal mass ejections.
Solar activity
like this typically expels charged particles into the Solar System, some of which may trigger
Earthly auroras.
As this year unfolded, the
above timelapse displays
of picturesque auroras were
captured above
Tromsø,
Norway.
Curtains of auroral light, usually green,
flow,
shimmer and
dance as
energetic particles fall toward the Earth and
ionize
air molecules high up in the Earth's atmosphere.
With solar maximum still in the future, there may be opportunities to see spectacular
aurora personally over the next three years.