The aurora borealis - here taking place in the night sky over the Lofoten Islands, northern Norway - “was a sublime experience,” says Australian Kent Miklenda, who shared the awe that our ancestors surely felt when observing the cosmic display. “Standing under the brilliant roof of stars and shimmering curtains of light was evocative of being in a kind of celestial cathedral.”
The natural physics behind the phenomenon is also impressive, involving atomic collisions of the solar winds and the Earth’s magnetic field lines creating ionizing gases that flux and glow in the atmosphere.
