The Northern and/or Southern Lights-or Aurora Borealis and Aurora Austalis-are centred over the magnetic North and South Poles in the Auroral Ovals, which are 500 to 1,000 kilometres wide. If one was to look at them from space, they would appear as two rings of light. When there is a great deal of sunspot activity on or around the spring and autumnal equinoxes (around March 21 and September 22), the Aurora Borealis materialize.

What causes these incredibly colourful displays? The sun gives off high-energy charged particles that travel into space at very high speeds. The cloud of these particles is known as the plasma.

The stream of plasma coming from the sun is referred to as a solar storm, and as the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth’s mag- netic field, some of the particles begin flowing around the earth and be- come trapped in by the earth’s magnetic field. Eventually, these particles collide with gases in the ionosphere, which causes them to glow.

A wide variety of colours are displayed during this phenomenon— red, green, blue and even violet, depending on how high the gases are in the ionosphere.

One of the factors that gives the Aurora Borealis a magical quality is that they are always moving because of the constant interaction between the solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field.

Many believe that the lights can make rustling or whistling sounds. However, scientists tend to discredit this, saying the lights are 60 to 600 kilometres above the ground and couldn’t possibly be heard on Earth.

Throughout the centuries there have been many beliefs from around the world on what the lights are and what they mean. The Inuit call the Aurora Borealis ‘Aqsarniit,’ which loosely translates to

Tom Kitchin

‘football players’. This derived from their belief that the colourful flickering skies are the spirits of the dead playing football with a wal- rus skull for a ball. The Vikings thought the lights were reflections of dead maidens. The Scottish call them ‘Merry Dancers.’ There are even some who believe that they are swans flying too far north, or the dead trying to contact the living.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the best places to view the Aurora Bo- realis are within the auroral oval which sits over Alaska, Yukon, N.W.T. (particularly Yellowknife and Goose Bay, Labrador), Norway, Finland and Russia. From these locations, the lights can usually be seen on clear nights, from Fall to Spring. However, if the solar winds are strong, the ovals will spread further south and the lights can be visible throughout most of Canada, the northern United States, Europe and Asia.

Some of the best spots in Canada to view the Aurora Borealis include the shores of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Northern Quebec and Nunavut. The prairie provinces can also be excellent for viewing due to their wide open landscapes and minimal city lights. The best time to see the lights is between midnight and 2 a.m.

The people of the Southern Hemisphere are not as fortunate as those in the North, because the Southern auroral oval is located over Antarctica. It is not often that Australia, New Zealand, Southern Asia and Africa are able to enjoy the wonders of the Aurora Australis.

There are now many websites that can quite accurately predict when the Lights will be the strongest, and they can usually provide a four or five day advanced warning. One of the best sites to visit is http://www.gedds.alaska.edu AuroraForecast/.