Celestial ballet in Iceland: a photographer managed to capture an extremely rare phenomenon – the curls of the northern lights
Astrophotographer Jeff Dye captured an extremely rare phenomenon on camera – the swirling of the northern lights over a crater lake in Iceland.
Typically, auroras occur when solar particles excite gas molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere, emitting bright light. However, the northern lights are a unique form of this phenomenon, caused by huge storms in the magnetosphere that generate ultra-low frequency waves. These waves can make the Earth’s atmosphere “ring like a bell,” creating vibrations similar to those of a guitar string.
Xing-Yu Li, an expert on microwave waves from Peking University (China), noted that the length of the magnetic pulsations could reach a kilometer, although scientific equipment failed to measure them.
“Imagine that the Earth’s magnetic field is like a guitar string. In this picture, we see the vibrations of this string.”
Xing-Yu Li, an expert on microwave waves from Peking University (China)
