Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis

Occasionally when one looks up into the night sky here at Akwesasne, they may capture a glimpse of shimmering curtains of lights dancing in the sky.  I remember one late August some 30 or more years ago when I first saw these lights here at Akwesasne.  It was a most beautiful sight, and it is very hard to find words to explain this most amazing celestial phenomenon. What I saw was varying shades of red curtain-like wispy shapes flickering ever so brilliantly in the sky.  My tota told me that what I was seeing was where our ancestors entered the Skyworld.  Northern Lights are also known as Aurora Borealis, which is Latin for “the red dawn of the north.”

Scientists have some explanations for the Northern Lights also known as the Aurora Borealis.  However, everything about these pulsating veils of light that spiral and wrap around magnetic fields and then tunnel into the atmosphere at the poles is not totally understood.  They know that Northern Lights originate from the sun.  Large explosions and flares that occur on the sun send quantities of solar particles into deep outer space. These plasma clouds take up to three days to be close to Earth where they are captured by the Earth’s magnetic fields. 

These solar particles are then guided towards Earth’s two magnetic poles, the geomagnetic North Pole and the geomagnetic South Pole.  The solar particles collide with atmospheric gases and are stopped. The collision between the solar particles and the gas molecules emits photons, which are light particles. When there are many collisions, you have an aurora - lights that appear to move across the sky - Northern Lights.  In order for us to see an aurora with the naked eye, 100 million photons are required.  The simplest way to explain Northern Lights is to compare them to the gas in a Neon light that glows when it is charged with electricity, so does the atmosphere glow with specific colors when it is charged with electric particles from the sun.

Northern Lights have a curtain-like shape.  Its lower edge is approximately 60 miles wide and they are about 10 times higher than a jet flies. Auroras occur in oval ring-shaped regions around the north and south poles.  Light shows are mostly seen in the following geographic areas within the auroral ovals:

- Northern parts of the Nordic countries, including all of Greenland and Svalbard.

- Northern parts of Alaska, USA.

- Northern and middle parts of Canada.

- Northern parts of Russia.

However, unusually powerful solar flares at times may over-load the Earth’s magnetic field, which can send Northern lights as far south as Texas.

A question debated for several centuries is whether or not Northern Lights emit sound that can be heard by observers on the ground.  Many people have claimed to have heard crackling sounds during aurora displays.  At the altitudes where auroras occur, there is a near vacuum.  Therefore, it is possible that sound could be heard.   Perhaps one day instrumental observations will one day give us the answer. Scientists do, however, understand why there are different colors in an Aurora Borealis.

The most common color in Northern Lights is a pale green. This color happens when electrons collide with oxygen atoms below a certain altitude.  Electrons encountering with oxygen at more elevated altitudes produces a red glow.  Nitrogen molecules near the bottom of the ionosphere produce a pale red light. Charged nitrogen molecules can emit a deep violet light, and occasionally blue light will come from hydrogen atoms.  Since hydrogen in the ionosphere is rare, the blue in an aurora borealis is rarely seen.  It is believed that late fall and early spring is the best time to see the Northern Lights, but this is not always the rule.  The ones I saw, when I was a young girl, I saw in the summertime.

One has to keep in mind that what many scholars and men of science know today can very well change tomorrow as more knowledge is gained.  At one time a group of well-respected scholars, with the knowledge they had at hand at that time, claimed the Earth was flat.  I look forward to the day when the knowledge and instructions given to our Haudenosaunee ancestors will no longer be subject to scientific scrutiny and can just be appreciated as one of the many gifts given to us by the Creator.