Aurora Borealis Essay

Have you ever thought about going on a vacation? Would you go to Alaska, the northern part of Canada, or the southern half of Sweden? I want to see Alaska, not visit because I feel I would freeze to death my first day there. Better bring a heavy wool jacket if you go to Siberia or south Antarctica. When the forecast is just right in those areas, and you go on vacation you will be able to catch a beautiful aurora. I am not talking about the Roman Goddess of dawn, although she might help with lighting up the night sky where Aurora Borealis, or Aurora Australis shine (Eos). Aurora Borealis in Latin means “red dawn of the north,” (Fast & Thomas). Internationally known as the Northern Lights. With a fascinating history, incredible views, and interesting

One site said it was Galileo in 1619 while others quote it was a “French scientist named Pierre Gassendi in 1621,”. Still it was the lifework of the Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, whose theories about the Northern Lights, electromagnetism, comets, and the sun that were accepted by the scientific community after his death in 1917 (Bookshelf). He was the first to offer the correct explanation about the Northern Lights. Birkeland studied, measured, and recorded the phenomenon is many locations and in the most different terrains, like Norway’s icy mountains and Africa’s deserts (Maxwell). It was in the Arctic where he aided Samuel Eyde in establishing magnetic observations that he determined that that Aurora Borealis was linked to the solar magnetic activity

The Eskimo, or member of an indigenous people in northern Canada and parts of Greenland and Alaska, better known as the Inuit, belief is almost the same. They believe the Auroras are torches held in the hands of Spirits to guide the souls of those who recently departed from life to a land of happiness (Goldman). They say the swishing sound that accompanies the lights is the sound of the dead trying to communicate with those living on Earth (Goldman). With that beautiful saying, I would rather believe that then what Mrs. Bush was trying to prove in 1995. When one Anita Bush, a woman with a PH.D in neuroscience, visited the university of Alaska, she came up with a theory. Bush tried to prove that Alaska 's high rate of suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths were at fault of the geomagnetic storms caused by the Aurora Borealis (Howard). Who was at fault the person who died or the one committing the crime is a question that still has no answer. Yet, Mrs. Bush did not stop the blame there. She stated that the "lighting rod" for the lights is Alaska 's oil pipeline, which is intensifying the effect and that was the explanation of the '89 Exxon Valdez oil spill (Howard). This was a woman set on putting the blame in Alaska. Yet Mr. Irion quoted, “but when the Sun gets angry, the northern lights can signal potentially disabling