Daily Celestial Challenge - Light

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

The Northern Lights.
Credit

Also known as the Aurora Borealis, are beautiful natural arrays of colorful lights that appear in the skies of the northern hemisphere of the Earth. Now I am definitely not talking about the rainbow which cuts across the sky in a linear spectrum, but I am rather talking about an aurora which wholly feels the sky with glowing bright and beautiful colors.
These lights can also be found in the South Polar region where is known also as Aurora Australis orthe Southern lights.

The Northern Lights pictured from Outer Space.
Image Credit

WHAT CAUSES THIS BEAUTIFUL NATURAL PHENOMENON?
One may ask the question above which might be a very pondering question; the answer is that the lights are results of solar winds given out from the Sun which take approximately 40 hours to reach Earth, thereby displaying in the form of magnificent colorful illumination in the skies of the planet. So we can comfortably say that Earth is not the only planet that witness this natural phenomenon. Other planets (most probably even exoplanets) also receive these lights as a result of thesame Solar action reason to its cause. Scientifically, the protons and electrons of the Sun flares that cause this light hit with the Earth’s magnetic field, the charged particles now move in spirals along the Magntic field lines with protons moving in one direction while electrons moving in the other. So with this happening, most of these particles collide with atmospheric gases in a ring around the magnetic poles where magnetic field lines meet. Now thanks to the presence of high percentages of Oxygen and Nitrogen in air at altitudes, these auroras are formed in the atmosphere; Oxygen atoms emitting green and sometimes red light while Nitrogen atoms emits orange and red.
The colors of these exquisite lights can mix up and then range from more colorful arrays of colors such as Purple, Pink, Violet, Blue, and plenty other beautiful combinations of colors.

The Northern Lights pictured at the Horizon.
Image Credit

Beautiful Northern lights in the sky of Norway.
Image Credit

WHERE CAN I FIND THESE LIGHTS
The lights are easily accessible in far northern countries around the North Pole, i.e Alaska, Canada, Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and even stretches down to Denmark, The U.K and Ireland. It can also be seen very well in the far South(around the South Pole), well that’s if you are bold enough to go on a freezing vacation to Antarctica.
If you’re on an Aurora Borealis explore vacation, I would recommend visiting Alaska and Greenland to see these lights, as they record higher occurrence percentages compared to other places listed. There are a lot of online sites where you can book a trip to countries to just to see these heavenly lights. I would not recommend checking out the Southern lights, it’s dangerously cold down there and Antarctica is a no-man’s land, although records has it that the Southern lights had been spotted from the Cape Horn of South America (the closest point of an inhabited continent to Antarctica) and also The Falkland Islands but on a very rare basis.

CONCLUSION
So in summary, these wonderful lights filling the Northern skies are wonders of the world. Scientist are exploring the phenomenon in other planets and the most intriguing of them all is Uranus. Normally, Uranus does not follow the counterclockwise rotation pattern as other planets, it’s auroras are not in the form of rings but rather spots on its surface. Mystifying.
And also, Auroras have known to travel more south to even to the points of spotting them in Mexico(Central America). So can we hope to see these beautiful illumination in Nigeria? We hope for the coming day.

For more details view his blog:
https://steemit.com/celestialchallenge/@sirknight/sirknight-s-daily-celestial-challenge-new-for-all-steemians

Note: @sirknight started a contest and its daily theme's are:
Sunday-Light
Monday-Darkness
Tuesday-AnimalKingdom
Wednesday-Structures
Thursday-ForcesinNature
Friday-LoveBeautyFreedom
Saturday-Agriculture
Today’s Topic - LIGHT

REFERENCES

1. http://factslegend.org/30-interesting-northern-lights-facts/
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora