Starship Asterisk*

The online observatory AuroraMAX, which offers live-streaming views of Canada’s northern lights, has seen an uptick in recent aurora activity, and the latest images the team has released are nothing short of stunning. The image above was taken early this morning, April 7, 2011. AuroraMAX is monitoring the intensity and frequency of the Aurora Borealis above their cameras in Canada in the years leading up to Solar Maximum, expected in 2013. In addition to nightly broadcasts of the aurora, AuroraMAX is helping demystify the science behind the phenomenon, as well as providing tips for seeing and photographing auroras.
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Click each image caption to access AuroraMAX’s Twitpic page, where they frequently post images from their nightly observations.

And check out the AuroraMAX website for more information on how you can watch nightly webcasts of aurora activity.

Chris Peterson wrote:The term is a used to describe an observation. Not a theory.

Chris Peterson wrote:Yes, but the discussion of magnetic reconnection, which is a well understood physical phenomenon, does not fall into that particular category.

bystander wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:Debate is healthy in some cases, but not all. Debating the existence of something that is part of mainstream scientific understanding is seldom useful or healthy, and in many cases violates the terms of this forum.

Electric Universe/Plasma Cosmology is not a topic that is open for discussion on this board.

Chris Peterson wrote:Debate is healthy in some cases, but not all. Debating the existence of something that is part of mainstream scientific understanding is seldom useful or healthy, and in many cases violates the terms of this forum.

NoelC wrote:Magnetic 'reconnection' may - or may not - be a real phenomenon, or a way of describing the effects of other phenomena, an oversimplification, or even a figment of imagination. But it's likely no one KNOWS with the level of certainty with which you worded your statement.

Debate is healthy, but true debate requires respect for others' viewpoints.

lankytom wrote:Magnetic 'reconnection' is also a noted fallacy.

Chris Peterson wrote:Magnetic reconnection is a very real physical phenomenon.

lankytom wrote:There are magnetic fields, but magnetic 'lines' do not exist - they are a figment of some astronomers' imaginations.

Magnetic 'reconnection' is also a noted fallacy.

The mechanism for aurora is simply the acceleration of charged particles by the Earth's magnetic field and the collision of those particles with other particles in the atmosphere. The Earth's magnetic field penetrates the atmosphere in the polar regions and that is why we have Northern and Southern 'lights', but not equatorial lights. When the solar wind is more dense, as recently from some intense solar activity, the aurora become more spectacular.

Vineyard20 wrote:Amazing pictures. I spent my college summers in the late 1960's working at a remote mine not far from Yellowknife and had the pleasure of seeing "The Show" on an on-going basis, and unfortunately pictures simply cannot capture the experience. I seem to recall a strange low pitch variable humming sound associated with the ever changing light pattern. Knowing that it was the 1960's after all, is my memory clouded or does that exist?

Vineyard20 wrote:
Amazing pictures. I spent my college summers in the late 1960's working at a remote mine not far from Yellowknife and had the pleasure of seeing "The Show" on an on-going basis, and unfortunately pictures simply cannot capture the experience. I seem to recall a strange low pitch variable humming sound associated with the ever changing light pattern. Knowing that it was the 1960's after all, is my memory clouded or does that exist?

http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu/aurora/faq.htm#sound wrote:

• Does the aurora make sounds?

<<This question is always good for a lively discussion among residents of the north. So far, attempts to record sound during aurora have failed to produce any proof that such sounds exist, but it is hard to ignore the numerous reports that go back centuries.

There are generally two types of sounds reported to accompany the aurora. The first is a swishing sound that changes with movements in that auroral display. The second type is a crackling sound, like static electricity makes.

The problem with claims of sound that changes in time with auroral movements is that the aurora is a long ways away (100 km/60 miles), so if sound was coming from the aurora, there would be a long delay between the auroral movement and the sound arriving at the listener's ears, just as thunder arrives long after a distant lightning flash is observed. There is also the small detail that the air between us and the aurora is far too thin to carry sound over such long distances. Therefore, if this kind of sound exists, it must be created very near to the observer.

The most likely explanation for this type of sound is that it is created inside the observer's head: not a figment of the imagination, but rather leakage of the electrical impulses from the nerves in the eye (carrying images of the aurora to the brain) into the part of the brain the processes sound. In a very quiet environment, there are no sound signals for the brain to process, so it notices these tiny leakage signals and the result is sounds that change in time with the aurora. This explanation was actually tested by some early explorers, who found that the sound went away if their eyes were covered.

The second type of sound is more mysterious. A crackling sound, like static electricity sparking, might be explained by the strong electric and magnetic fields associated with the aurora, but so far theories and measurements have not provided a satisfactory explanation. Research continues.>>