Northern Lights

The Northern Lights are created by our sun. Large explosions and flares cause massive quantities of solar particles which are thrown out from the sun into deep space. The particle clouds travel through space around 300 to 1000km per second. With earth being approximately 93millon miles away it can take these cloud of particles about 2 to 3 days to hit the earth's magnetic field. Scientists can see these explosions on the sun using satellites and can predict approximately two or three days before. There is usually activity every day, but it depends on the strength of the particles, as to how strong the Northern Lights glow.



When the solar particles are captured by the earth's magnetic field, they are guided towards the earth's two magnetic poles: The geomagnetic North Pole and the Geomagnetic South Pole. ( This is how we get the name the Northern Lights and Southern Lights.)
On the way to the poles our atmosphere acts like a huge shield and protects us from these potentially dangerous particles. When the particles collide with our atmospheric gases it causes collision energy between the solar particles and gas molecules, it is then emitted as a Photon, (a light particle) and when this is produced on a massive scale, you then have an Aurora light, or Northern light which appears to dance across the night sky.

The Auroral Zone

The Auroral oval represents the area of earth where the Southern and Northern lights occur and of the highest intensity. A Swiss physicist called Herman Fritz in 1881 wrote a book called “Das Polarlicht”, He showed that the Northern lights have maximum affect close to 67 degrees north. He called this belt the Auroral Zone. The study of the Northern and Southern Lights went on through the years and now today we monitor this with the use of images and photos sent by satellites. The Auroral oval is fixed in space with the reference to the sun. As the earth revolves the Auroras change accordingly. See below as you can see the Auroral Oval. (One at the North-pole and one at the South-pole)

Northern Lights and how often do they occur?

With the Northern light or Auroral zone the Northern Lights or southern lights can be seen every winters night: There are other variations. - The Northern Lights are most frequent and intense from 22:00 to midnight magnetic time. - Northern Lights are more frequent in early Spring and late Autumn. October, November, February and March at the best viewing in the North of Scandinavia. - Aurora Borealis activity is 20% - 30% less during Solar minimum than Solar maximum. The Northern Lights can be seen as far south as the Mediterranean, but this only happens when Solar activity is extremely high, maybe once in every 100 years. (Average)

Where to see the Northern Lights

Under normal conditions the Aurora oval covers many places in the Northern Hemisphere they usually include: - Northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard. - Northern parts of Alaska and USA - Northern and middle parts of Canada - Northern parts of Russia The Northern Lights are natures very own magnificent light display. We cannot guarantee that you will see them as weather conditions play a massive part in viewing. Hopefully with this information we hope to give you a better insight on how the Auroras occur and the best places to see on northern lights holidays