If someone were to ask me ´how far have you travelled from your land?´’ ‘Norway!’ is my instant reply. While Norway remains the farthest I have travelled, it also remains the most exotic and beautiful travel experience of my life so far. I am thus sharing with you all the special clicks from Norway – The land of the northern lights.
Aurora Borealis – The northern lights
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky (from the Latin word aurora, “sunrise” or the Roman goddess of dawn, especially in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric charged particles with the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere).
Did you know?
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Earth isn’t the only planet with aurora. Jupiter and Saturn have auroral ovals on both hemispheres. Astronomers have also spotted aurora on Uranus and Neptune.
- A coronal mass ejection, or an ejection of energetic plasma from the Sun, can travel at speeds of up to 10 million kilometres per hour.
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Major solar storms can cause power outages, such as the 1989 blackout in Quebec. In March 1989, an explosion on the sun was so powerful it was like thousands of nuclear bombs exploding at the same time. Quebec lost power for 12 hours.
- The colours of the aurora are determined by the type of molecules with which solar wind particles collide as they enter the earth’s atmosphere. Solar wind particles and oxygen molecules produce green and yellow light, while nitrogen molecules produce red, violet and blue light.
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The aurora borealis is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek term for “wind of the north,” boreas.
- Inuit used to fear the northern lights, believing that the phenomenon could decapitate people who travelled at night by dogsled. It was also thought that cutting the sled dogs’ ears provided protection from these attacks.
I stayed in the northern most city of Norway, Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth-largest urban area in Norway by population,and the seventh largest city in Norway by size.
The whale safari in the Arctic Ocean was a wonder of its kind!
5 Comments
I have read about aurora only in geography texts :p Wish I could witness it someday 🙂
It was a out of this world experience for me Amrit, I couldn’t believe I was on some past of earth. It’s mesmerizing to say the least.
OMG, this is unbelievably beautiful. Wish we make a trip there.
I wanna go to this place now 🙂 That’s a very nice post and OMG the pictures <3
am soooo jealous 😉 Wish I can get an onsite assignment too somewhere in Europe … 🙂
Lucky you … keep enjoying, traveling and sharing stunning images with us 🙂