"You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face." -James Thomson
The northern (aurora borealis) and southern (aurora australis) lights are caused by a combination of three phenomena on our world, that make our aurorae unique among all worlds in our solar system:
- Outbursts from the Sun that can go in any direction,
- Our magnetic field, that funnels charged particles into circles around the poles,
- And our atmospheric composition, that causes the colors and the displays we see.
Image credit: flickr user Image Editor, via https://www.flickr.com/photos/11304375@N07/2844511020/, under a c.c.-by-s.a.-2.0 generic license.
Put all of these together and add in a 4k camera aboard the ISS, and you’ve got an outstanding recipe for the greatest aurora video ever composed.
Image credit: NASA/International Space Station.
Here's the in-depth science behind it, too, only from me and Starts With A Bang!
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Having seen Borealis for many years out of Toronto, I appreciated the lights whilst living there. Thanks for the aerials; just a different and pleasant visual - brings back the memories.
I remember seeing the first images caught by a new, super sensitive video camera which was (finally) sensitive enough to capture the Aurora, blurrily, on magnetic tape instead of film. These are amazing, I want to see more, from higher up!