Unfortunately, I missed something of which I think is one of the most fantastic natural phenomena the world has to offer. Instead of watching a wonderful dance of light in the sky, I was sleeping… It all happened last Friday night (10th of May 2024). One of the most wonderful natural phenomena was visible above the Netherlands: Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Light.
Aurora borealis
Aurora Borealis is the result of a disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, due to solar wind. Charged particles from these solar wind slam into particles in Earth’s atmosphere, at a speed up to 2500 m/s. The energy that is released due to this collapse, causes a beautiful light spectacle in the sky. The colour of the light that is emitted depends on the hight in the atmosphere were the collapse happens. The colour also depends on if the particles slam into oxygen or nitrogen molecules. The magnetic field deflects the particles towards the poles of Earth. Therefore this natural phenomenon is often visible in high-latitude areas, close to the North- and Southpole. However, when the solar wind is extreme, this spectacle of light can be visible in lower-latitude areas. It has been twenty years since the solar wind was this extreme!
Light pollution
Many of us wish to experience this “light show”. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to see Auroras in urban areas. This difficulty is due to what we call light pollution. Light pollution is a worldwide problem that is caused by human-made alterations of natural night light levels by artificial light sources (Falchi et al., 2019).
ALAN (Artificial Light At Night) referrs to the excessive and misplaced artificial lighting emitted in our cities at night. This lighting can brighten the night sky so much that it becomes difficult to see stars and other celestial bodies, such as the Northern Lights. Besides that, it also has huge impacts on human health and animal wellbeing.
In urban areas, light pollution can be so intense that it can make the night sky up to 100 times brighter than in a natural, unlit location. This means that the delicate light of the Northern Lights is often drown out by the glow of city lights.
In the meantime, the best way to experience the Northern Lights is to leave the city and find somewhere dark, quiet place away from the light pollution. It may be a little more effort, but seeing the Northern Lights is an experience I would love to see someday!
References
https://darksky.org/resources/what-is-light-pollution/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479719309296#fig6
https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/aurorawatchuk/2016/11/14/light-pollution/
https://twanight.org/gallery/natural-beauty-vs-light-pollution/
Featured image: (NOS) Photo of the Northern Lights in the Netherlands, Twitter (X): https://x.com/KvanOosterom/status/1789289904314183870.
Leave a Reply