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Northern Light Fact #7 – The Cool Light
They look like fire, but are the Northern Lights hot?
The northern lights may look like fire, but they wouldn’t feel like one if you had the chance to touch them. Yes, Northern Lights are basically hot flying particles from the Sun hitting the Earth’s magnetic field with the speed of sound, but in the altitude they occur the air is really cold. The Northern Lights are happening in the thermosphere, where the air is always far below zero celsius. Because of the surrounding air’s temperature the Lights itself are cooled down, making the Aurora Borealis seem really “flamy”, but also very cold. It is easier to consider Northern Lights as glowing gases than actual fires on the sky!
In the old times the Finns believed that if you make too much noise under the Northern Lights they will come down from the sky and burn your hair. Little they knew at the time, eh?
Check out the rest of the facts and stay tuned for the next week’s interesting monday -fact!