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AURORA IN EDINBURGH: NATURE’S OWN LIGHT SHOW
Our Planetarium Officer, Toni, writes about her evening chasing the aurora in Edinburgh on 10th May.
On the Friday 10th of May, a storm of epic proportions hit the planet and while we in Scotland are used to a storm, this one took us all by surprise. This storm didn’t come from the clouds here on Earth, but rather all the way from the Sun. Planetarium Officer, Toni, writes about her evening chasing the aurora in Edinburgh:
“There were rumours circling on various “Aurora Watcher” groups of a huge Solar storm heading towards the Earth and my phone had been pinging with notifications of solar activity all day. However, living in a – notoriously cloudy – city surrounded by streetlights, I kept my expectations low. So, when I glanced out of my window at 11pm to see a pink glow above the flat, my heart started racing!”
The glow of the Northern Lights was bright enough to be seen from the city centre, amid the light pollution of the streetlights.
“After quickly changing back out of my pyjamas, I made my way to the darker skies of Holyrood Park. There, I found people – so many people – watching the skies as the northern lights danced above their heads.
To the eye, the aurora appeared as an eerie glow in the sky, perhaps with a hint of green and pink but through a camera lens, the colours stood out – pinks, reds, greens, blue and purple. This happens for a few reasons. Cameras, including those on phones, can take long exposure photos allowing more light to be collected in one instance than our eyes. Our eyes are also less effective at perceiving colour in darker conditions so you may have noticed only a white glimmer of the aurora.”
The lights form a waterfall of colour over Toni’s favourite tree in Holyrood Park.
A comparison of the colours Toni saw with her eyes vs the colours picked up on the camera.
“This dazzling display was caused by coronal mass ejections – enormous eruptions of plasma from the surface of the Sun. On this occasion, four separate outbursts had combined on their journey through space resulting in one huge ball of plasma colliding with Earth on Friday.
When this stream of charged particles hit the Earth’s upper atmosphere, it made the atoms and molecules there glow – much like a neon lamp glowing as electricity is passed through it.
Different gases at different heights in the atmosphere give us the different colours of the aurora. Oxygen, for example, sitting over 60 miles up, glows green. The pink comes from oxygen sitting even higher up – around 150 miles high – and is only seen when the solar activity is particularly strong. Hints of blue or purple are due to nitrogen lower down in the atmosphere, at altitudes of around 60 miles.”
“But, perhaps, there was something more magical than the aurora – the thousands of people out of their bed, gazing up at the night sky in awe. Holyrood Park was abuzz with people adjusting their phone camera settings, pointing out bright arcs of green, rushing to find the darkest spot and, of course, those who lay down on the grass simply staring up at the lights as they danced overhead.
It is true that the Sun is currently in the peak of its 11 year cycle and activity will remain high for the next year or so. However, the long days of a Northern summer are here and it will be months until the nights are dark enough for another display here in Edinburgh.
As the days grow longer, that may be our last opportunity to spot the Northern Lights until the darkness of winter returns – but what a night it was!”
The range of colours we were treated to in this display is rare – only appearing with the strongest solar activity.
