Northern Lights

     Despite the fact of being such a magnificent phenomenon, northern lights, or aurora, have quite easy physical and astronomical explanation. The main factors causing this appearance are solar activity, which sends to the Earth charged particles, and magnetic field of the Earth, which directs these particles to the atmosphere, where so-called collision of sun and gas particles occurs and, here we go, amazing colours in the sky.

      An interesting fact is that in the upcoming year 2013, we are going to meet the period extremely rich in the northern lights. Then an issue arises: “Where to haunt for such miracles?” An answer is quite surprising, since if you’re a fun of aurora, you should head not only for Polar Regions (Arctic and Antarctic), but for Canada, as well. The case is that aurorae occur in the North Magnetic Pole which does not totally coincide geographically with Northern Pole. Thus, among other destinations for eager northern lights observers are Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northern parts of Russia. 

     The great news is that auroras are most frequent during the solar activity, which will be the most active in year 2013. Therefore, we should all get prepared for these events, in particular, get equipped, since it’s rather difficult to take a picture of northern lights. Good luck!