We're Goin' Huntin!
Brian set his Sony up on a tripod with the shutter open for 25 seconds to capture the wispy Northern Lights behind me!
Some locations have tornadoes to hunt-- but here in Fairbanks, we go hunting for Northern Lights! We awaited for our Fearless Leader, PolarTREC Teacher Tim Spuck, to guide the way, but first.. we needed energy, and where else to load up but the local Taco Joint, El Tapatio?
The perfect meal for Northern Lights huntin'! El Tapatio on Cushman St.
What is the Aurora?
This is a group show with a DIFFERENT kind of northern light behind as well!
Have you ever heard of the Aurora Borealis? Elders in the Arctic, like Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Russia, used to use these beautiful colors in the sky to tell stories! What story do you think my picture tells?
Some legends say that elders used to say the lights were spirits dancing in the sky!
Well, it has to do with the Sun and the Earth and the awesome things that happen between them! The Earth has a magnetic field-- check it out here.
Now look what happens when you put a magnet around it,. Then the Earth rotates and creates electricity-- find out how here!
You can see what happen when metal objects interact with the electricity and the magnetism you just played with-- try it out here!
The aurora is created when particles from the sun run into the gas particles in the Earth's atmosphere, and it's <a href="swf file="http://auroraalive.com/multimedia/autoformat/get_swf.php?videoSite=aurora&videoFile=aa_crashing_particles.swf"> beautiful!
What's the Forecast?
This is a map of the Aurora Forecast from the Geophysical Institute! This is a
We can use forecasts to see when we should go outside to check out the aurora-- this was last night's forecast.
What can you tell by looking at the band and at the city of Fairbanks?
We had a quiet activity last night-- long curtains on the horizon! Still very beautiful, but I can't wait to see a substorm, when the activity really fires up!