About a year ago, I was discussing summer vacation plans with my parents. We take a vacation nearly every year, usually to a typical tourist location (an exotic beach or an historic city), and we wanted to try something a little different. When I mentioned offhand that I would love to see the aurora borealis, we decided on a Scandinavian country for our trip. Shortly thereafter, we were in a plane on our way to Norway. After doing the usual tourist activities, such as walking around the large cities and visiting museums, we took another plane to the far north, to a tiny village in a fjord called Ersfjordbotn.
There, we rented a little fishing cabin for a few nights. We occupied ourselves during the day with driving around the scenic countryside looking at fjords and glaciers, or with exploring the nearby city of Tromsø. At night, we stayed up as late as we could watching the sky for any glimpse of the aurora. The first night, it was somewhat overcast, and I fell asleep wondering if we were missing a spectacular light show above the clouds. I awoke in the morning to an absolutely gorgeous day where the bright blue sky was unmarked by even the smallest cloud.
During that day, I tried as much as possible to enjoy the scenic drive we took, but I was anxious for the sun to set. Finally it did, and I had just changed into my pajamas when my dad called from outside my door, "Cassi, come quick! I can see something!" I pulled on my coat and hat and rushed outside in my slippers. There, far above us, were bright, undulating green curtains, moving in a celestial breeze. We stared in wonder as we watched it for twenty minutes or more, exclaiming how amazing it was. I was entranced, watching the green streams of light against the brilliant pinpoints of stars in the background. It was the most gorgeous sight I had ever seen, and made the heavens feel as magical as they did when I first learned the light from those pinpoints had traveled millions of years to reach us.
A year later, more recently, my father discovered this amazing video of the aurora from space:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3-ZOJCCYjE
Note: This is the southern aurora, but it is very similar to what I saw in Norway.
It's so difficult to believe that the processes that caused this amazing light show traveled millions of miles from our sun to interact with our atmosphere and create a beautiful natural wonder for us to behold. Seeing it for myself amazed me then, and the memories and idea amazes me still. It's difficult to see something this spectacular and not wonder: What other fantastic phenomena exist out in the empty black of space, which is secretly not empty at all? How can we possibly discover everything when there is so much to consider? I can't imagine anyone who can face such incredible wonders and not wish to devote their time to learning everything they can. My only hope in life is that I can uncover even a tiny fraction of the mystery that is astronomy. We've discovered so much, and yet there is still so much left to learn!
