No matter where you live no matter what secret treasures of this planet you have unlocked till now, everyone has a dream to visit lovely places and discover the marvels of nature offered by our planet and explore the horizons never seen before.
Well, I myself grew up hearing and admiring the beauty of something really unique and sort of fairy-tale scenery known as the northern lights.
Do you believe this place actually exists? because I used to refuse that something that spectacular could even exist in the real world.
Nonetheless, some Inuits believe that the spirits of their ancestors can be seen dancing in the form of the aurora.
The Vikings believed that Aurora is the bridge of fire from the sky for the gods but hey wait it is real and if you get to know how exactly the aurora is formed, it may spoil its beauty for you.
Well, spoiler alert for everyone living in a fantasy world that according to the modern science, the aurora of southern and northern lights are not actually the dancing spirits or the bridge of fire, but it is caused by something even more tangible known in our solar system as “the sun”.
The giant ball of fire 150 million kilometers away from our planet is having this continuous fusion process of hydrogen and multiple gases and every once in a while, it kicks off a massive storm (a solar storm).
These solar storms have the enormous amount of energy which releases throughout our solar system in a form of highly charged particles (Plasma).
The fusion reaction of hydrogen and helium gasses provokes the ejection of extremely hot gasses into space in a form of a solar flare and they could be witnessed as the highly bright spots on the sun’s surface. When an extremely large solar flare occurs containing a significantly huge amount of energy it is referred to the coronal mass ejection (CME).
Solar flares and CMEs don’t just stop at sun’s surface and the particles continue to travel through the deep reaches of space and reach to the planet earth in a form of solar winds after traveling for two days. Imagine what would happen if this solar wind struck directly to our planet? precisely that would be the extinction of the human race.
Well, the solar wind hit planet earth often but fortunately, the earth’s magnetic field basically serves as a gigantic defense system and bounce off all the particles of solar. However, the earth’s magnetosphere has two weak spots.
- North Pole
- South Pole
The tiny bitsy percentage of the charged particles make their way into the earth’s atmosphere. When this phenomenon is happening, the electrons of the charged particles collide with the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere and reach their excited state and began to emit energy in a form of lights or photons.
Through this phenomenon, we observe the light trails all over the sky also known as Aurora Borealis at south and north poles.
Never mind the facts you just read folks, it is quite a dangerous phenomenon nonetheless mind-boggling to observe in reality. The places where the Aurora Borealis could be seen are sights of heaven for the photography lovers like me. There are some specific places where you should love to visit to admire this unprecedented beauty of nature.
I truly wish to visit one of these places just to fulfill my long-awaited desire to photograph this marvelous art of God by myself. One should visit these places at least once in a lifetime.
1. Alaska (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali)
2. Denmark (All islands within its archipelago)
3. Scotland (Aberdeen, Isle of Skye, Northern Highlands, Dunnet Head)
4. Canada (Calgary Ontario, Yukon Territory, Manitoba)
5. Greenland (Kulusuk, Ammassalik)
6. Finland (Luosto, Nellim, Utsjoki, Ivalo, Kakslauttanen)
7. Iceland (Outside Reykjavik, Þingvellir National Park)
8. Norway (Tromsø, Alta, Svalbard, Finnmark)
9. Sweden (Kiruna, Abisko, Swedish Lapland)
10. Russia (Murmansk, Siberia, Kola Peninsula)
