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The power behind the Northern Lights

ANNE MCILROY

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 10:06 PM EST 27/07/08

Discovery of how substorms energize celestial shows could help protect satellites, power grids, from radiation ...Read the full article

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  1. S.L. S from Small Town, Canada writes: Cool. I love watching the Northern Lights in the fall. Here, we get them in full color and have little ambient lighting to distract from them. Beautiful sight.
  2. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: And this theory is new?........hhmmmmmmmm.
  3. Edward Eh from Bathurst, NB, Canada writes: Very poor explanation, of the what but not the why, how and wherefor. I'm still in the dark.
  4. Okanagan Man from Sunny Vernon, Canada writes: My buddies and I use to canoe a lot in Northern Saskatchewan. We would lay on the precambrian rock and whistle at the nothern lights thinking that we were influencing their dancing movement. It wasn't until years later I found out that the Aurora Borealis are actually about 80km in the upper atmosphere. That must have been some whistling we did:) They are a beautiful sight and very magical for those that have never seen them.
  5. Ed Long from Canada writes: I really miss the sizzling of the Northern Lights that I enjoyed while living on the prairies.

    My grandmother, on a great rant about that Ottawa government and taxation, 'They take money from me and waste it on those Northern Lights.'
  6. Stan Consultant from Canada writes: This looks like a promo fluff piece, put out to the media in advance of making another grant application asking governments and foundations for more money, for 'further necessary research'. Standard media manipulation technique in science circles. The paper itself is obviously trivial and insignificant, so we can assume 'Science' is cooperating in the effort to get more funding for more rigorous research, that might achieve more important conclusions.
  7. Catherine Wilkie from Canada writes: I prefer the explanation offered by folklore. Spirit voices talking to us.
  8. R. M. from Regina, Canada writes: It never ceases to amaze me. Here in 2008 scientists say they have finally figured out why northern lights dance but posters on these boards are 100% they know the causes and cures for climate change. The more we pretend to know the more arrogant we become.
  9. Michael Sharp from Victoria, Canada writes:

    The Northern Lights dance because they can.

    There.

    That wasn't hard, was it?
  10. diane marie from calgary, Canada writes: Ed Long:-- Now we know how you obtained your political outlook :-). I had a great aunt who liked to pronounce that everything was 'herditory'. Family members still use the word with a knowing smile and everyone then thinks of Auntie Della.

    R. M. from Regina:-- It really doesn't matter if we know or don't, but one thing we do know is that the era of cheap-and-easy oil is over. Therefore, it's adaptation time, and the most successful nations will be those able (through mature leadership and citizenship) to adjust sooner rather than later. The billions of dollars the U.S. has spent hoping to corral oil in the ME might have been spent on adaptation.
  11. Luke Powell from Vancouver, Canada writes: Stan Consultant from Canada writes: The paper itself is obviously trivial and insignificant, so we can assume 'Science' is cooperating in the effort to get more funding for more rigorous research, that might achieve more important conclusions.

    ------------

    Stan, I can tell you the paper isn't trivial, if only because Science doesn't publish trivial research. They accept around 8% of all papers received for publication.

    Also, the research fills a rather huge gap in the understanding of what actually happens during an aurora borealis event. That you are ignorant of the state of knowledge on the subject shouldn't be grounds to trash the research.
  12. Blue Magic ...... from Mississauga,, Canada writes: Cool. The nothern lights are amazing. And are even better when your out camping enjoying the, how do I say this....pizza toppings.
  13. S.L. S from Small Town, Canada writes: There was guy in Manitoba years ago who said he controlled the movement of the lights by waving a bed sheet at them. Did he retire?
  14. Stan Consultant from Canada writes: Luke Powell -- I'm sorry I disturbed you by posting a different view from yours on the comment board. I truly didn't intend to irritate or annoy you.
    I understand the emphasis you place on the eminent reputation of 'Science'. I only meant to tactfully indicate the reality that a great deal of what goes on in the science community takes place in private, and that scientists talk among themselves constantly, just like every other group of people. I hope I'm not offending you again, but for the editors of 'Science' to do a favor for investigators they know and respect, to publish a paper for them to promote their chances of obtaining more funding for more research, is the sort of thing that happens in the science community all the time. It is not unusual or unethical. It is a normal social example of friends helping friends.
    I honestly wasn't intending to trash the paper done, and I certainly don't think that I did. I was only describing the reality that more investigation clearly needs to be done, and that the media release was obviously an attempt to get more funding for that study, which again is standard in the science community.
    Finally, if you can excuse me correcting your assumption, I do actually know a fair amount about the subject of the paper.
  15. S.L. S from Small Town, Canada writes: I remember one cold Oct night in Cold Lake. I was sitting on the front porch during a visit from my mother who lives in Windsor Ont. She came out to ask me why I was sitting outside, on a blanket, for 2 hours. Well to make a long story short 2 more hours after that we both got up and went inside as the lights were fading. I didn't know it but she'd never seen the Northern Lights before in her entire life. It was a great show that night, full color and lively dancing. She was in absolute awe and recounted the story constantly til her days end. If nothing else, the lights have given me a moment to remember when I was able to share their beauty on a cold Oct night with my mother.
  16. Luke Powell from Vancouver, Canada writes: I was hardly offended, Stan, but I was a little annoyed that you would call the paper 'trivial and insiginificant', because it isn't. If this really is the first time the trigger event of substorm has been observed, then it's a very worthy publication for Science, even if scientists already suspected it. As someone who knows something of this area of research, I'm surprised you would consider it trivial.

    That said, I'm not disagreeing with you. Plenty of back-scratching goes on in the science community - I know because I'm part of it. A lot of it has to do with the perception (right or wrong) that research funding is difficult to get, and colleagues are all too happy to boost your profile if they think you'll do them a favour down the road. Actually, in many cases, most senior researchers are paying it forward, effectively repaying favours incurred by scientists who helped them at a young age. My advisor always bought the beer so long as I promised to do the same down the road.

    In a roundabout way, I suppose this is a strategy to get funding. NASA themselves issued the press release (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/themis_power.html). Every now and then they have to justify the money the get from the government, and showing the public they are doing valuable research earns them brownie points with the decision makers.
  17. Justin Payne from Richmond BC, Canada writes: Stan...I think you're right on the spot. It's all about money in the end. But your post is far more eloquent in saying the same.
    Way off topic, but I think this equally applies to cancer research. What an enormous industry it has become. The cure for cancer will put thousands out of work and make pharmaceutical companies billions, in the short term.
    I believe the common cold had been cured by some Manitoba scientist several years ago, but I understand the pharmy cos bought her out, as it was cheaper for the pharms rather than have a cure, which in turn, means no more money...cure equals no funds equals no job. Like I said, it's all about money. Capeesh?
  18. BUB SLUG from Canada writes: Now we are calling them Researchers. What happened to the term Scientists?

    When I lived in the north for 20 years, Inuvik, NWT. the northern lights were right overhead, They were so Intense sometimes you could reach out and touch them.

    But in all those years they were never credited for causing any power failures, the pesky Ravens were the cause of most of the outages and poor equipment or Operator errors for the rest, I know this because I was a power plant operator for all those years.

    Maybe the researchers could prove the outages are caused by the northern lights, then they might have some credability.
  19. Rabid Senses from Good gawd, a latte-swilling Westerner, Canada writes:

    I am all for earmarking another $1.5B into further research.

    I wanna know why they dance.

    We can take the money from the money earned from the telecom auction that just netted the Canada a $4B-plus surplus.

    Some to the debt.
    More infrastructure.
    A few obligatory, silly tax cuts
    $1.5B to Northern Lights What-Makes-em-Dance fund
  20. freeman lamb from kimberley, Canada writes: what might cause the flux in the magetosphere ?
    does the moon have a magnetic sphere ?
    thank you for a great story
  21. Dick Garneau from Canada writes: Yes the northern lights are awesome. On cold nights you can hear them crackle.
  22. Bruce Rich from Lansdowne ON, Canada writes: You refer to to "substorms". Shouldn't this be "sunstorms"?
  23. S.L. S from Small Town, Canada writes: Dick Garneau from Canada writes: Yes the northern lights are awesome. On cold nights you can hear them crackle.

    I may sound stupid here and I may have been sucked in hard but are you serious??? I've never heard them crackle. Maybe I wasn't far enough north or too much ambient noise where I am but do they really crackle or are you just joking and I was dumb enough to fall for it?
  24. Dawn from Minnesota from Minnesota, United States writes: Dick Garneau from Canada writes: Yes the northern lights are awesome. On cold nights you can hear them crackle. ---- Mr. Garneau: I have heard the northern lights make sound also. When I was in Iceland, the sound they made was like a flag flapping in the wind. I think you have to be pretty far north to hear the sound associated with the northern lights. I never heard any sound made by the northern lights in the United States or in southern Canada. ---- This is very interesting research. The five satellites were manufactured in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. ------Minnesota contributes quite a bit of technology to space research. -----The Mars Rovers were made in Minnesota. The Mars Rovers are still wandering around on the surface of Mars and transmitting data back to Earth. They are controlled by a joy stick connected to a computer monitor that sees through the eyes of an onboard camera. When one of the Rovers encountered a large rock, the song "Big Rock in the Road" was beamed up to it. Banjo music has made it to Mars.
  25. john setta from Canada writes: With the up coming pole shift, how is that going to effect the northern lights?

    That's the ? that should be answered.
  26. Stewart Mawdsley from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories., Canada writes: A neat article...but the Globe should do their homework. We've known the mechanism behind the generation of the Northern Lights for years - we learned it in junior high science class actually - the solar radiation being deflected by the earth's magnetosphere. To claim that they 'finally solved the mystery' is quite ludicrous.

    Btw, my hometown, Fort Smith is the only habitated community in the world in PRECISE alignment with the most intense rays (see the halo on the top graphic). Aka a direct 90 degree angle down fromt eh deflection. So we have the best northern lights in the world - quite beautiful to have grown up with.
  27. Silent Majority from Canada writes: John,
    The lights would relocate during a pole shift. On that topic, during a shift there would be a transition period during which the protection from the solar wind which the magnetic field affords would be diminished; get out your sunscreen.
  28. Bob Dobbs from oakville, Canada writes: Call me crazy, but this gives credance to the 'hollow earth theory' that there is an opening at the north pole. How else do you explain a circular ring of lights? The 'hollow earth' theorist say that there is a round opening at the north pole and that particles are ejected from the so-called inner earth that then react to particles in the atmosphere giving off a so-called northern light. And why does it flare up? Well, radiaton (ie light) from the sun does not all bounce off the surface of the earth. Imagine light from the sun of various frequencies. Some would be like bird shot whereas others might be like big cannonballs. Some penetrate through the earth and make it to the so-called hollow center. The 'hollow earth' theorist claim that there is a central sun made up of these particles that make it through the earth...and when the 'big' sun gives flares up and gives off more light, the central sun can't handle all the particles that come and they more or less reject them through the polar openings. Hence the northern lights. See, that wasn't all that complicated. In fact, I dare say it is alot easier to visualize than the explanation offered in this article.
  29. Lyn Alg from Canada writes: No, I disagree with these researchers. I truly believe that the northern lights phenomenon is the Calabi-Yau manifold - a sort of holographic form explained by the superstring theory. This manifold is a quartic fourfold manifold in a complex (imaginery), 7-dimensional space. Mathematically, it can be proven using tensor calculus with an orthogonal tensor variance of (n 10).
  30. Bob Dobbs from Oakville, Canada writes: As to what Lyn Alg wrote: I am not sure if you are just pulling our leg or not. If not, may I suggest the following. James Clerk Maxwell in his day had these mechanical models of how things worked. However, when he published his Maxwell equations he only published his equations and not the mechanical models. Consequently, people today think that they just need to come up with a math equation to "explain" something. More often than not they are totally wrong because they don't have a physical model.

    As an aside, rumour has it that Maxwell made one mistake with his equations that he has been kicking himself for (in heaven) ever since. His equations were based on the supposed fact that charge is always conserved. Ie A charge on an electron or proton will never change. He later found out that charge is not constant and in fact transforms into a magnetic field when a particle is moved. So, as the magnetic field increases, the electrostatic field decreases and at the speed of light the electrostatic field has gone to zero. This explains how the equations (ie relativity) with (1-v2/c2) in them stumble occasionally onto some results. Also, this explains why we can't accelerate particles past the speed of light using magnetic fields that act on the electrostatic potential of the particle. I could go on, but you get the idea. P.S. For the record, Einstein was a nice guy, but Relativity is totally misguided.
  31. Some Guy from Canada writes: ' freeman lamb from kimberley, Canada writes: what might cause the flux in the magetosphere ?
    does the moon have a magnetic sphere ?
    thank you for a great story'
    No, only planets with a molten iron nickel core have a magnetosphere to interact with the solar wind and cause northern lights.

    ' john setta from Canada writes: With the up coming pole shift, how is that going to effect the northern lights?

    That's the ? that should be answered.'

    We have no idea when the magnetic pole will switch polarity, but it is currently headed rapidly toward Siberia. If it continues, our northern lights will grow less impressive and the Russians will get more impressive.

    It has long been known the northern lights were associated with solar storms, it would appear this group have proposed a precise mechanism for the cause. When I had a summer job in mining geophysics in the NWT the northern lights were spectacular, but we didn't like them much. We were paid by production and often after a good northern lights display the next day the shifting magnetic fields produced a larger signal in our wires than the one were trying to detect.

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