Aurora Borealis Essays - Space Plasmas, Plasma Physics,

Aurora Borealis AURORA BOREALIS Imagine a cold October night, you walk out to your car and something catches your eye. You step further into the street be it busy or not, and you begin to turn in 360 circles. For what your eyes behold is far from anything you have ever seen. A circle of green and blue swirl through the night sky, I could best describe this as two ballroom dancers doing a Waltz through the night sky. They flow, they glide so gracefully that they capture you and keep you entranced for a very long time. This my first experience viewing the amazing Aurora Borealis, it did not matter that people were watching, or that the roads were iced over and that I could not stand on my own two feet very steadily. For as unbalanced on my feet I might have felt, I felt very balanced watching these ?ballroom dancers? in the night sky. October 1996, Fairbanks, Alaska. As enthralled as I was with aurora borealis, so were many other cultures. In Middle-Age Europe the Aurora's were thought to be the reflections of heavenly warriors. As a kind of posthumous reward the soldiers that gave their lives for their King and Country were allowed to battle on the skies forever. The northern lights were the breath of these soldiers as they resumed their fight in the sky. The Scots saw the lights as ?Merry Dancers?, while the Swedes thought the lights performed folk dances and polkas. The power of the auroras is said to be fruitful for the earth, they draw animals to certain areas so that they are plentiful for hunters. The Scandinavian people would say the lights are sunshine reflecting off of the herring in the northern sea. A welcome omen for the fishermen to reel in large amounts of fish. According to folklore tradition shared by some Alaskan Eskimos, the northern lights are the souls from those whom died from massive blood loss. Be it from childbirth, murder, or suicide. The spirits from these bodies would play a game similar to that of soccer in the night skies, but they would use either the head of a walrus or of a human. It would seem as though you could hear the chattering as the jaws thrust toward the players. There are reports that the auroras have the ability to heal, however; their ability to bring on ailments is far more founded. Researchers from the USSR published results that stated that people are more likely to have fatal heart attacks when the auroras are at their strongest point. The myth and mystery of aurora borealis is so widespread. It encompasses so many countries that it is impossible to share all their thoughts. My favorite folklore is that of the Eskimos of the lower Yukon River in Alaska. They would describe the Aurora's as the dancing souls of their favorite animals: deer, seals, salmon, and beluga whales. Under the spell of the Aurora's the Universe comes to life and people will be drawn to their loveliness, no matter what the myths or folklore share, the Aurora's are magical and spell binding for all whom have the opportunity to experience them. The Aurora's are never absent from the earth, they are just often not seen. Viewing them is easy if you are fortunate enough to live in the favored locations. The Aurora's are prominent in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres and spend most of their time around the edges of the earth where they are said to dance solely for the penguins and the polar bears. However, due to the tilting towards the sun and irregularities in the earth's magnetic field, the aurora is 20-30% brighter in the northern hemisphere. ?Where the auroras are most common people tend to be scarce.? Examples of these areas that have phenomenal views of the auroras would include; Goose Bay, LaRonge, and Yellowknife, Canada; Barrow, Alaska; Tromso, Norway; and parts of Russia. Amidst these areas the auroras can be seen from the autumn to the spring as long as the nights are cloudless and the temperature is cold. If you are fortunate enough to live near the favored locations previously mentioned you are most likely going to have your