The Northern Lights and Polar Night

The areas where we find the midnight sun in the summer are also characterised by polar night in the winter, where the period of darkness there is equivalent to the period of daylight during the summer. The darkness is not total, however, even though the sun cannot be seen. This is due to refraction in the atmosphere, in the same way that it gets light before the sunrise.

Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights as it is also known, is a physical phenomenon that occurs when solar winds with electrically charged particles collide with the gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. The Northern Lights occur at altidues between 90 and 150 km above the ground, and emerge as shifting lights in the night sky whose colours vary from almost white to green, blue and red.


Photo: Magne Myrvold
 

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