‘Absolutely bonkers’ aurora lights up the sky above Iceland (video)

An Icelandic room reservation paid off large for a pupil “aurora chaser.”

Vincent Ledvina traveled midway the world over from Alaska to Iceland and noticed surges of inexperienced auroras the evening of Jan. 13, proper over his cabin, cataloging a terabyte’s value of “absolutely bonkers (opens in new tab)” northern lights footage about two hours from Reykjavík.

“This explicit […] location was legendary and led to a few of my favourite aurora compositions ever,” mentioned Ledvina in a tweet (opens in new tab); he’s no stranger to the shimmering inexperienced lights given that he’s normally primarily based in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“This was the proper finale to our Iceland journey, and my associates who had by no means seen the aurora have been handled to a stable present. Now they perceive why I am obsessed,” Ledvina added on Twitter (opens in new tab).

Associated: Where to see the northern lights: 2023 aurora borealis guide

Auroras, additionally identified within the northern hemisphere because the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are patterns of sunshine within the sky that happen because of exercise from our sun. Energetic particles from the star careen into Earth’s higher atmosphere and are redirected in the direction of the poles by the magnetic field of our planet.

The sun is climbing in the direction of a peak of its 11-year-cycle of exercise, and had been firing off powerful X-flares within the days earlier than the Icelandic storm. It additionally sends out a stream of particles by way of the solar system referred to as the solar wind. The colours arising in auroras on Earth come because the particles energize fuel molecules excessive in our environment. Different planets and moons have auroras as nicely.

Associated: Do extraterrestrial auroras occur on other planets?

Auroras are a innocent manifestation of solar exercise, however at occasions highly effective flares may cause transient radio blackouts or disrupt satellites. On very uncommon events just a few occasions each 1,000 years, particularly highly effective blasts from the sun might be fairly disruptive, such because the notorious Carrington Event of September 1859 that triggered injury to the telegraph infrastructure of the period.

As such, NASA and its space companions preserve a relentless watch on the sun’s exercise by way of a community of satellites to make predictions as correct as doable. Spacecraft such because the European Area Company’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe additionally make periodic close-up sweeps of the sun to seize detailed info, and are protected by particular shielding to resist the extreme radiation from our solar neighbor.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a e-book about space medication. Comply with her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).