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Northern Lights Goes Nuts In Nebraska

Posted by michael on from the purty-colors dept.

ciMedia writes "By far the most amazing photo adventure of the northern lights. These lights lasted into early morning."

6 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I've always wanted to see them by dtolman · · Score: 3, Informative
    Then you need to check spaceweather.com!

    I used to say the same thing - but I've now had at least two l chances in 1 year to see them on Long Island - many miles to the south of you. The last opportunity was only a week ago (same event that sparked this story).

  2. Re:I wonder by dtolman · · Score: 2, Informative
    The two episodes of unusually active aurora's over the past year have more to do with the sun than the Earth.

    Though I have read that a side effect of the magnetic pole flip when it does come could be more wide-spread aurora activity...

  3. Link by pbrammer · · Score: 5, Informative

    This may be of interest to some: http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/

    Contains forecasts and historical data plots.

    Phil

  4. Re:I saw 'em! by andygodwin · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're caused by high energy particles colliding with the upper atmosphere... check Wikipedia if you want more info.

  5. Aurora pictures and radio reflections by leighklotz · · Score: 3, Informative

    When there is lots of aurora, the ionospheric reflection of radio is also perturbed. Read this description of the week from the RF point of view. In summary, the High Frequencies (3-30MHz) lose out, but he Very High Frequencies (30-300Mhz) gain. In particular, the 6 meter (50MHz) ham band showed some interesting reflections. For reference, that's right around tv Channel 2 in the US. Imagine not only being able to see Aurora, but sense them with your own radio and talk to someone by bouncing radio waves off of the aurora!



    VA2VYZ has some nice aurora pictures from Quebec.

  6. Re:small island my .... by MrPeach · · Score: 3, Informative

    You'll also notice that most maps are a Mercator Projection, which makes things pole-ish look really a lot larger than they actually are. For example, Greenland looks the size of Africa on most Mercator maps. In actuality, it is (839,999 sq miles) a little less then 1/4th the size of the USA (3,536,278 sq miles). If you take into account that it is only 19% usable, that leaves only 159,600 sq miles of habitable land, which is slightly larger than the state of California (but a lot less hospitable).