Welcome to the Northern Lights

High above the Arctic Circle, in the dark winter skies of northern Norway, something magical happens. Curtains of green, purple, and pink light ripple across the heavens, shifting and dancing as if painted by an invisible hand. This is the aurora borealis — the Northern Lights.

Humans have watched this spectacle for thousands of years. The Vikings believed it was the glow of the Bifröst bridge connecting Earth to Asgard. The Finnish called it 'revontulet' — fox fires — imagining a magical fox running across the snow, its tail sweeping sparks into the sky. The Sámi people of northern Scandinavia believed the lights were the energies of departed souls.

But the real explanation? It is just as extraordinary as the myths. The aurora is the visible result of our sun hurling charged particles across 150 million kilometers of space and colliding with Earth's magnetic field. Let's find out how.