Enigmatic AURORA BOREALIS

Saturday September 11th, 2010On September 8, during one of the night shift, the crew of Pakea Bizkaia enjoyed a new cosmic phenomenon for its members and very characteristic of these latitudes, the aurora borealis or polar. Two nights earlier, in the Lofoten islands also enjoyed it, but not with the same intensity and strength.

The Aurora Borealis is a phenomenon that appears in the night sky as bright, and can vary in color from pink to green. It usually happens in the cooler months from October to March, and in the polar regions of the Northern Hemisphere and south, as the air temperature must be low enough. The name “Aurora” is due to the Roman Goddess of Dawn.
The origin of this phenomenon is in the “solar wind”, which is a stream of charged particles continuously emitted by the sun. These particles, protons and electrons are directed to the poles due to Earth’s magnetic field. They interact with the air, the collision energy is transformed in this show luminescence.