I really don’t think I need to add anything to this. Set it to HD, make it full screen, and turn the sound up.

Tip o’ the magnetometer to Tom Lowe, aka Timescapes.

Photographer Alistair Chapman traveled to Tromso, Norway — 300 km north of the Arctic Circle — to capture video of the aurorae from the recent spate of solar storms. What he caught on camera is remarkable: shimmering, waving, dancing lights moving in real time!

[Make sure you set it to 720p; Chapman says higher-def footage is coming soon.]

That’s amazing. Aurorae video is generally done with time lapse to show the movement, which is usually slow. I’ve often wondered just how fast the movement really is; I always figured fluctuations in the solar particle density, speed, and magnetic fields would produce real-time changes in the lights, but I’d never seen anything like this! After a search of YouTube I actually found several more.

I know some people will think this is fake, and I had my skeptic hat on while watching it. Note that in most time lapse you can see the stars move; in this they don’t, indicating (unless it’s a complete fake) short periods of time during the filming. Given that, plus the existence of other video like it, I’m thinking this is real.

Mind you, the movement you’re seeing isn’t a physical motion. It’s not like solid curtains of material are flapping. The lights are caused by atoms in the upper atmosphere getting hit by subatomic particles blasted out by the Sun, caught by our Earth’s magnetic field, and funneled down into our air. These particles dump energy into the atoms, moving the electrons up in energy (called excitation). The electrons then jump back down, emitting light in the process (de-excitation). As I said in an earlier post, it’s like needing energy to jump up stairs, but releasing it as you jump down.

Different atoms have different energy levels for the electrons — think of it as more or less spacing vertically between steps in a staircase — so the energy emitted is different, resulting in different colors emitted. That’s why we see green, red, purple… they come mostly from oxygen and nitrogen in the air. So as the magnetic field fluctuates, the particles are sent shooting down in different places, giving the appearance of motion while the atoms themselves don’t move.

The physics is complex and interesting, but the beauty of these lights is, to use another term, magical. Not in the fantasy sense, but in the sense of the emotional response we have to them. They are simply breathtaking in these videos, and are a wonderful by-product of our tempestuous Sun.

Tip o’ the lens cap to sunspotter.

The solar storm that impacted Earth Tuesday produced a lot of auroral activity, though it’s hard to say if it was really that much stronger than usual. Still, any aurora is better than none… and I have two videos to show you!

The first was taken on January 22, and shows the effects of an earlier wave of subatomic particles spat out by the Sun. It was made in Birtavarre, Norway by Ørjan Bertelsen, who put together 1600 exposures to make it:

It’s amazing to get the three-dimensional effect as the sheets of glowing atmospheric molecules pass overhead, and you’re seeing them nearly edge-on. And I love picking out familiar constellations in videos like that; did you see Leo, Gemini, Cancer, and Taurus?

The second video was shot in Abisko National Park, Sweden, by Chad Blakley, and all I can think of as I watch it is how cold those people must have been!

As I mentioned in a radio interview on Tuesday, I’ve never seen a bright aurora. Once in Maryland I saw a reddish glow to the extreme north during a particularly big display, but that’s really about it. Someday, though, I’ll get a chance. As the Sun gets more active over the next two years I may very well finally see these magnificent light shows. After writing about them so much, I think I’ve earned it.

Tip o’ the parka hood to John Markus Bjørndalen.

The solar storm that erupted from the Sun yesterday reached the Earth today at about 15:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. Eastern US time). The wave of subatomic particles has been impacting the Earth’s magnetic field, and we’re starting to see some auroral activity:

Isn’t that lovely? That was taken at 18:00 UTC today from a webcam in Abisko, Sweden. Can you see the handle of the Big Dipper right below the green curtain? [More aurora webcam sites are listed below.]

The two biggest questions I’m getting on Twitter and Google+ are 1) is there any danger to this storm, and b) can I see the aurora from [my location]?

First, no, we’re not in any danger from this event. Even though it sounds terrifying — an explosion the equivalent of billions of nuclear weapons launching hundreds of millions of tons of subatomic particles Earthward at speeds of million of kilometers per hour! — we’re pretty well protected down here on the surface. The Earth’s magnetic field catches the particles, and most of those get dumped harmlessly in our upper atmosphere. That can create the aurora displays, but won’t dose everyone with radiation and give them superpowers.

Sorry. [UPDATE (19:00 UTC): a ground current surge was reported in Sweden, but so far that's the only physical impact I've heard of.]

But the aurorae are pretty cool, and that brings us to the second question. The answer depends on where you are, and when it’s dark out. As I write this, activity is on the rise. Here are some live webcams for aurorae, some of which are showing spectacular activity! Note they only show views when it’s nighttime locally:

Lapland

Fairbanks, Alaska

Yellowknife, Canada

Tromso, Norway

As for seeing them wherever you are, that’s tough to say. The Geophysical Institute has a map showing predicted activity for North America, for example, and NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has a continuously updated map showing auroral activity for both hemispheres. Universe Today has a guide on how to see the aurorae, and Astronomy magazine has a discussion of aurorae, too.

I’m getting conflicting info on potential aurorae tonight; the webcams in Scandinavia listed above are showing strong (and gorgeous) activity, but the prediction for Canada and the US appear moderate at best. But don’t let that discourage you! If you have clear skies, go outside once it’s good and dark and take a look. Even if there’s no aurora, you can see Venus and the thin crescent Moon to the west right after sunset, and that’s always a plus. And if things perk up, you might get a nice light show to the north, too!

OK, fine. I’m too much of a sap to leave y’all at the end of the year with a floaty shark balloon. So instead, I’ll leave you with some astonishing beauty: Terje Sorgjerd’s time lapse animation "The Aurora":

Wow. Make sure it’s set to HD and make it full screen!

As devastating and haunting as the northern lights are, my eye kept being drawn to the stars themselves. I recognized some constellations, but their movement across the sky was just so odd: instead of heading up or down, many were going sideways, parallel with the horizon. I hadn’t read the video notes yet, so when I saw that, my first thought was, "Holy cow, how far north was he?!"

Turns out, really, really far. The video was shot at Kirkenes and Pas National Park in northern Norway — yes, northern Norway, around 70° north latitude. As an example, down here at more temperate latitudes, Vega gets pretty high in the sky, almost directly overhead. But that far north it doesn’t; in fact, that far north Vega never sets! It’s a circumpolar star, like Polaris itself. You can see that for yourself in the video: Vega is the bright star near the center of the frame starting at 21 seconds in. It’s in the video for about 10 seconds, and you can see it’s moving downward in a slow arc, but clearly won’t get anywhere near the horizon.

In the very next sequence you can see Orion right on the horizon, faded due to the Moon. But where I live, in Boulder, over the course of the night Orion rises on his side, arcs up to the south until he’s standing upright, then sets on his other side. In the video, though, he’s upright and slowly, slowly sinking at a shallow angle.

What a difference latitude makes! The aurorae are usually only visible from extreme northerly or southerly latitudes — though sometimes, after a big solar storm, they can be seen toward middle latitudes — so that’s an obvious difference. But the stars themselves tell the story of our round planet.

We live on a ball! And it spins through space, once a day, sweeping around a star in a period about 365.24 times that long, which itself circles the center of the Milky Way once in a period 220 million times longer than that, as it’s done only a score of times since its birth.

That’s quite the story. And the best part? It’s true.

Keep that in mind as we start our next turn around the Sun. Maybe it’ll help keep things in perspective.

Happy new year, folks, and may 2012 be ruled by reason and reality.

Unless you are actively giving CPR to an accident victim at this very moment, drop whatever you are doing and watch this stunning, mind-blowing time lapse video of the Earth at night, taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station:

Holy. Haleakala. Make sure that’s set to HD and make it full screen.

The video, taken by astronauts and edited by Michael König, was from a high-resolution camera with low-light abilities, so it can see faint sources of light. The footage was all taken from August to October 2011.

I’m so overwhelmed by the beauty and coolness of this video I’m not sure which part I like best! The cities streaming by underneath; the instantly recognizable outlines of familiar places like the Great Lakes or the boot of Italy; the incredible flickering thunderstorms — giving you an understanding that there are always thousands of such storms all over the planet at any one time; the incredible 3D view of the green and red aurorae which you can actually see as towering structures dozens or even hundreds kilometers in height; the stars rising and setting and spinning over the horizon; the reflection of the Moon on the Earth below following along our point of view at 2:50 into the footage; or the thin glowing arc above the horizon: airglow, caused by molecules in the upper atmosphere slowly emitting light as they release energy accumulated during the day.

It’s all fantastic.

There have been plenty of beautiful time lapse videos of the Earth from the ISS — most notably, one from September — but this sets a new standard. Not the least of which because it’s so smooth; the sense of motion, the sense of flying, is overpowering. But the sheer magnificence of the entire video is simply incredible.

Credit: NASA, Michael König, who used photos from NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of the Earth site.

In the past few months the Sun has come roaring back to life, blasting out flares and fierce waves of subatomic particles. These space storms are caused by the magnetic field of the Sun, which stores huge amounts of energy. Near sunspots the magnetic field lines get tangled and can suddenly erupt, hurling that energy into space.

If these tsunamis of particles head our way, they interact with our own planet’s magnetic field. Through complicated processes, the particles are focused down into our atmosphere, where they light it up (literally) like a neon sign. The result: aurorae, also called the northern (or southern) lights.

During a recent storm, photographer Dave Brosha was up in Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, which is at a latitude of 62° north, not all that far south of the Arctic Circle. The aurora display that night was, well, unearthly. He got some amazing shots, including this one:

[Click to stimulatedemissionate.]

Wow. That’s breathtaking. The silhouette belongs to photographer Thomas Koidhis, also a Canadian from the NWT. The stream of green aurora is simple amazing, like a solid path you could walk right into the sky. The Milky Way hangs as a backdrop, the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra punctuating the glowing stream.

He has many more such gorgeous shots in his Flickr set, and I particularly like this one, which shows the ribbons and curved streamers of the lights, caused by the curves in the Earth’s magnetic field itself.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it many more times in the future: people who say science takes away the magic of reality are wrong. The aurorae are among the most beautiful and amazing sights that nature has to offer, and their beauty is enhanced, magnified, by knowing what it is that causes them.

Knowing is half the fun. The other half? Finding out.

Credit: Dave Brosha, used by permission.