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The Northern Lights have been dancing across the prairie night sky during the past couple of weeks.
Samantha Lawler, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina, joined the Evan Bray Show to discuss the Northern Lights and how they appear.
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Listen here to the full interview:
Lawler said it was one of the best light shows she’s ever seen.
“That was incredible, I’ve seen a lot of aurora shows where you can kind of see a little bit of red,” she said.
Lawler said it’s easier to see the colours through photographs than in person.
“Our eyes are not very good at seeing colours in low light,” she said. “When you’re looking at auroras a lot of times it’s not that bright, especially in the red part of the spectrum… cell phone cameras or professional cameras, they’re very good at that.”
Auroras, or the Northern Lights, are often referred to as solar storms.
Lawler said this is because the sun has a magnetic field and the plasma that creates the Northern Lights is breaking through that field.
“There are lots of sunspots, and these sunspots will get tangled up in the magnetic fields,” she said.
“If these magnetic fields break, that can release a whole bunch of plasma, much denser than usual and if it’s headed toward the Earth, then that plasma interacts with Earth’s magnetic field and Earth’s upper atmosphere.”
Lawler said the sun goes through activity cycles. Some years are more active on the solar storm front than others.
“The sun right now is at a high point in its activity cycle,” she said. “It repeats every eleven years or so, so the sun will continue to have lots and lots of sunspots over the next couple of years and then it’ll drop off.”
Lawler said once it drops off, it’ll take around 10 years before it ramps up again.
The colours of the Northern Lights tell a story as well.
Lawler said the colours represent the distance the lights are located from the ground.
“The greens are happening at like 80 to 100 kilometres above Earth’s surface,” she said. “The reds are happening at like 200 to 400 kilometres, so they’re much higher altitude, which means you can see them from farther away.”
Lawler said it’s hard to predict when and where these solar storms will happen, but added it’s reasonable to believe the Northern Lights will continue to dance across the night sky for the next year.
