An Icelandic room reservation paid off big for a student “aurora chaser”.
Vincent Ledwina traveled halfway around the world from Alaska to Iceland and saw waves of green aurora right above his cabin on the night of Jan. 13, listing a terabyte’s worth of data.absolutely crazy (opens in new tab)“The Northern Lights footage from Reykjavik is about two hours.
“this particular […] The location was legendary and led to some of my favorite aurora creations,” said Ledwina. a tweet (opens in new tab), He is no stranger to the blinking green light as he is usually based in Fairbanks, Alaska.
“It was the perfect finale to our trip to Iceland, and my friends who had never seen the aurora were treated to a solid show. Now they understand why I’m obsessed,” Ledwina added on twitter (opens in new tab),
Connected: Where to See the Northern Lights: 2023 Aurora Borealis Guide
Timelapse of the aurora burst from January 13th right outside our AirBnB near Seljalandsfoss, Iceland! You could really see how fast the aurora changed, it was amazing to see in person, the camera doesn’t do it justice! @TamithaSkov #aurora #northernlights pic.twitter.com/NYopz5ftjUJanuary 18, 2023
Going absolutely crazy in Aurora Selfoss, Iceland! Crazy movement and color. What a way to end your time in Iceland! Wow Wow wow! 22:45 UTC@TamithaSkov pic.twitter.com/P27S50hCXEJanuary 13, 2023
Aurora is totally NUTS in Iceland right now!!!! pic.twitter.com/FKcNsc83gyJanuary 13, 2023
The aurora, also known as the northern lights or aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere, are patterns of light in the sky that are caused by the activity of our Sun. Energetic particles from the star travel into Earth’s upper atmosphere and are redirected toward the poles by our planet’s magnetic field.
The sun is peaking at its 11-year peak of activity, and was firing powerful X-flares in the days before the Icelandic storm. It also sends a stream of particles through the Solar System called the solar wind. The colors produced in the aurora on Earth come from particles activating gas molecules high in our atmosphere. Other planets and moons also have auroras.
Connected: Are extraterrestrial auroras found on other planets?
Auroras are a harmless manifestation of solar activity, but sometimes powerful flares can cause brief radio blackouts or disrupt satellites. On very rare occasions a few times every 1,000 years, particularly powerful outbursts from the Sun can be disruptive enough, such as the infamous Carrington event of September 1859 that damaged the telegraph infrastructure of the era.
As such, NASA and its space partners constantly monitor the movement of the Sun via a network of satellites in order to make predictions as accurate as possible. Spacecraft such as the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe also periodically orbit the Sun to gather detailed information, and are protected by special shielding to withstand the intense radiation from our solar neighbor. There are
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