Sometimes in the late sixties, perhaps very early in the seventies, one of my classmates asked if we had seen the colorful lights in the sky the night before. ”They signify the end of the world,” he continued, somewhat annoyed that his gloomy message was met with a shrug.”Such nonsense,” he was told, ”you saw the northern lights. Is this the first time you see the northern lights?””No,” he insisted, “it was much worse than that. The northern lights are green, but these lights came in all kinds of colors!
”We looked at each other and shrugged. There was nothing to be done when our classmate was in this mood. We went away and left him with his doomsday musings. Outside the schoolyard, however, we talked about the breathtaking northern lights that we obviously all had witnessed. They were an awesome and extraordinary spectacle.
Dancing lights
This same evening the northern lights appeared again, this time even more beautiful and violent. There was something awe-inspiring about them in their grandeur - and as we stood there in a group, gazing at this overwhelming spectacle, we could well understand our pious and terrified classmate. But ten wild horses would not have been able to drag such a concession out of us.
Long filaments of multi-coloured light danced, twirled and gyrated across the sky - the colours alternating from almost yellow-greenish to luxuriant green, blue and red. In the starry night, it was as if you could feel lights sparkling and crackling - almost like static electricity when you pull a nylon T-shirt too quickly over your head.
Solar storms and suchlike
This happened either in the late sixties or early seventies, when children were interested in everything having to do with space. So even though we were not entirely clear about the actual processes, we knew that the northern lights occurred when solar winds grow in energy, especially during powerful eruptions emitting the so-called solar flares.
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles and when these particles hit the earth’s magnetic field, northern or southern lights appear at the poles, aurora borealis and aurora australis.
The fiercer the solar wind, the more powerful the northern lights. They occur at altitudes of 90 to 300 kilometres, when the intensity of the solar winds in the form of charged particles is deflected into the Earth’s magnetosphere, forming a belt around the earth’s magnetic poles. During strong solar activity, fierce solar storms for instance, the northern belt widens and the northern lights can be seen further south.
The process
The process itself consists of energy-rich protons and electrons in the solar storms smash into atmospheric molecules, increasing their energy states for a moment. The molecules and atoms then release excess energy or recapture displaced electrons which decay to their ground state. It is this emission process that creates the aurora borealis - and different wavelengths create the different colours. The colours of the aurora depend on which gas is being excited by the electrons and on how much energy is being exchanged. Oxygen emits either a greenish-yellow light (the most familiar colour of the aurora) or a red light; nitrogen generally gives off a blue or purple light. Blue, red and purple are also colours that are seen less frequently and tend to appear when solar activity is high. In all cases, the colours are caused by particles colliding with our atmosphere.
Ymer’s eyebrows – Middle-Earth’s fortress
Yes, I know these actual processes can seem boring in print - but I can guarantee that for us boys and girls standing in the dark and watching the northern lights dancing in the sky, there was nothing dull or trite about this sight. I’ve often seen northern lights, both before and since, but nothing comes close to the cosmic spectacle that unfolded over our heads that night in the sixties.
It truly riveted our imagination - and we were not the first to feel certain awe and humility at the heavenly display. Our ancestors, the Vikings, had their own explanation for the aurora phenomenon:
When Odin and his brothers had killed the enormous giant Ymir, they created the visible universe out of his dead body. In the midst, they built Middle-Earth, the world of men, and around it they built a bulwark to protect against giants and other monstrosities. The fortifications were made by Ymir’s eyebrows and occasionally you can see the eyelashes flickering like light in the distance - this is what some termed the northern lights.
Greenlanders, our neighbours to the west, have inherited legends from their ancestors that are no less colourful. The ancient Inuit knew that the northern lights were actually the souls of the dead playing ball in the sky.And yet - the end of the world?”It’s a sign of the end of the world,” said our nervous classmate that memorable night. Neither he nor the rest of us had the slightest idea that his words were about to come true.On May 23, 1967, panic took hold of the U.S. Army Command. The Cold War between the Eastern and Western powers was at its height when American radar systems suddenly lost power. The Americans believed that the Soviet military was jamming their radars and were convinced that a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States was underway. All alarm bells started ringing and a massive retaliatory attack with nuclear weapons was being prepared when some bright head got the brilliant idea of consulting scientists on atmospheric disturbances. Astronomers who had recently taken interest in solar activity. They stated that a huge solar eruption had just begun and the earth had becoem the target of a violent solar storm severely affecting electronic equipment across the globe, including the American Early Warning systems.
The retaliatory attack was cancelled and the impending nuclear Ragnarok averted - but only at the very last minute.
As far as I can remember, the violent solar storm and the consequent spectacular northern lights that struck us with awe and wonder that evening came later than 1967 - but I’m not sure. At least I’m happy our classmate did not end up as a prophet that unforgettable night.
Anker Eli Petersen
