Growing
up in Canada there were times in late fall and winter when the aurora borealis
paid a visit—those colorful and ethereal filmy veils that trail across the sky when
conditions are just right. Reportedly they are caused by cosmic rays, solar
wind, and magnetospheric plasma interacting with the upper atmosphere. Oxygen and
nitrogen molecules play in there somewhere. I think of the aurora as the
midnight sun’s polar opposite (not only in terms of the calendar but in terms
of temperature readings, as well). The Meteorological Institute in Tromso,
Norway, offers a 20-minute documentary at the Northern Lights Observatory. The
movie, the brain-child of a couple dedicated photographers, represents seven
months of time and hundreds of hours of winter sky-watching. Their hundreds of
thousands of photographs have been condensed into the world’s first 360-degree
high resolution movie of the Aurora Borealis or Northern lights. If you are
able to give your brain a ‘travel treat,’ this movie is a must, at least in in
my book. You might want to check Wikipedia for a picture of the aurora over
Calgary, my birth city.
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