Cracking the science behind the northern lights
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - The northern lights have mesmerized those lucky enough to witness its beauty dancing across the sky for millennia.
Signs of turmoil have been looming. The sun’s twisting magnetic fields have become entangled. With stress building, the sun has no other option but to send out a coronal mass ejection. Rushing through the vacuum of space at 1864 miles per second, the charged plasma eventually reaches Earth in 1 to 3 days...
As they pass through the Earth’s magnetosphere at the north and south poles, a glow illuminates the sky... To the naked eye it’s a subtle light... but to a camera or cell phone with long exposure.. it’s an explosion of color...
Teresa Hofer Co-Owner and Photographer Badlands Observatory, stated, “The color that we see is the charged particle entering the Earth’s atmosphere and depending on what altitude they enter at and depending on the gas composition that is of that atmosphere at the time they enter.. that determines the color”
The farther south you head from the poles, the less likely you are to see the Northern Lights. Here in the mid-latitudes, we rely on the Planetary K index, going from a scale of 0 to 9. Hofer added, “We look for that KP index which is a measure of the strength of that activity and how far south it can get, we look for that to be at about a 5 for a storm level below that you can sometimes see an aurora but its really much better when it gets to a 5 and above.”
There are various ways to find out when the northern lights will be active, from Facebook groups to numerous apps. Whether you are an Aurora hunter or a first-time viewer of the lights, getting someplace dark is the best way to document your experience. Hoffer adds, “You can also use a cell phone camera, in fact, and it will bring those colors out, so if that’s what your intent on doing is seeing the color, and if you really want to see those vibrant colors, make sure to take your cell phone with you.”
List of Web sites to track the Northern Lights
30-minute Aurora Forecast
Facebook Groups - South Dakota Aurora Notification Group
Badlands Observatory - Website
Apps for both Android and iPhone
How to take a photo of the Aurora with a cell phone.
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