An Unbiased View of Northern Lights: 11 best places to see the aurora borealis

likewise keeps in mind the aurora, according to NASA. The science behind the northern lights wasn't thought until the turn of the 20th century. Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland proposed that electrons released from sunspots produced the atmospheric lights after striking the Earth's magnetic field. The theory would ultimately prove right, but not till long after Birkeland's death.

When this picture was taken on Jan. 22, the station was orbiting 261 miles (420 kilometers) above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of The United States and Canada. Below https://highyields.com is a blanket of marmalade-colored airglow, a kind of luminescence brought on by ultraviolet light that activates chain reactions high in Earth's environment.

(Image credit: NASA)What are the northern lights? At any given moment, the sun is ejecting charged particles from its corona, or upper environment, developing what's called the solar wind. When that wind knocks into Earth's ionosphere, or upper atmosphere, the aurora is born. In the Northern Hemisphere, the phenomenon is called the northern lights (aurora borealis), while in the Southern Hemisphere, it's called the southern lights (aurora australis)."These particles are deflected towards the poles of Earth by our world's magnetic field and connect with our atmosphere, transferring energy and triggering the environment to fluoresce," stated Billy Teets, an astronomer and the director of Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Buzz on The Ultimate Guide to the Northern Lights in Iceland - Gu

"Every type of atom or molecule, whether it's atomic hydrogen or a molecule like carbon dioxide, takes in and radiates its own distinct set of colors, which is analogous to how every human has an unique set of finger prints," Teets informed "A few of the dominant colors seen in aurorae are red, a color produced by the nitrogen molecules, and green, which is produced by oxygen molecules." While solar wind is constant, the sun's emissions go through a roughly 11-year cycle of activity.

This is when the northern lights are at their brightest and most frequent. The last solar optimum, or period of peak activity, occurred in 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), placing the next one in roughly 2025. In spite of a lot of advances in heliophysics and climatic science, much about the northern lights stays a secret.