Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE AURORA BOREALIS
The aurora borealis (Northern Lights), an utterly haunting and exhilarating sight, is often
visible to observers above the Arctic Circle, which includes a large portion of Lapland. It's
particularly striking during the dark winter; in summer the sun more or less renders it in-
visible.
The aurora appears as curtains of greenish-white light stretching east to west across
the sky for thousands of kilometres. At its lower edge, the aurora typically shades to a
crimson-red glow. Hues of blue and violet can also be seen. The lights seem to dance and
swirl in the night sky.
These auroral storms, however eerie, are quite natural. They're created when charged
particles (protons and electrons) from the sun bombard the earth. These are deflected
towards the North and South Poles by the earth's magnetic field. There they hit the
earth's outer atmosphere, 100km to 1000km above ground, causing highly charged elec-
trons to collide with molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. The excess energy from these col-
lisions creates the colourful lights.
The ancient inhabitants of Lapland believed it was caused by a giant fox swishing its tail
above the Arctic tundra. One of the Finnish words for the aurora isrevontulet('fires of the
fox').
To see the lights, you'd best have a dark, clear night with high auroral activity. October,
November and March are often optimal for this. Then it's a question of waiting patiently
outside, preferably between the hours of 9pm and 2am, and seeing if things kick off. If
you've got a vehicle, don't bother paying for an aurora-watching trip. There are several
useful websites for predicting auroral activity:
Geophysical Institute
(
www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast
)
Change the view to Europe and
away you go.
University of Oulu
(
http://cc.oulu.fi/~thu/Aurora/forecast.html
) Finland-based page with
links so you can make your own prediction.
Service Aurora
(
www.aurora-service.eu
)
Daily and hourly forecasts and text-message no-
tification service.
Saariselkä
016
