
Apukka Resort Blog & News
Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland
Our blog introduces life in the Arctic to you one topic at a time. From our daily lives here in the North to the old beliefs built around the Northern Lights and the history of Lapland, our blog familiarizes Finland and the Finns to you on a new level.
Please have a look at our blog, hope you find it interesting!
Northern Light Fact #5 – The Space Lights
Did you know that astronauts may have the best views of the Northern Lights? When orbiting the Earth, the Northern Lights can be seen directly across from the spaceships in a view unlike any other. The altitude of the Northern Lights is actually same as the altitude of the International Space Station and this is …
Northern Light Fact #4 – The Southern Lights
You know Aurora Borealis, but what about Aurora Australis? Northern Lights are well known around the globe, but very few know that they have their southern counterpart. Around the southern magnetic pole the aurora occurs same way as in the north and actually they occur at the same time. It just happens to be so …
Northern Light Fact #3 – The Color
Why are the Northern Lights so often green? The colors of auroras are determined by the gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and incoming solar particles tend to collide with different gases at different heights. The most common height for the particles to collide is from 100 to 300 kilometers above the ground. At this height …
The History of Aurora Borealis
An aurora was described by the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th century BC. Seneca wrote about auroras in the first book of his Naturales Quaestiones, classifying them, for instance as pithaei (barrel-like); chasmata (chasm); pogoniae (bearded); cyparissae (like cypress trees), and describing their manifold colors. He wrote about whether they were above or below …
Northern Lights of the Carrington Event
You get a certain hunger for Northern Lights and you have to see them again, and again. When it’s your job to think about Aurora Borealis, you sometimes accidentally start to think how big they can get. It is well known that all The Northern Lights are not the same, so who has seen the …
Northern Light Fact #1 – The Sound
Northern Lights look great, but did you know that they also produce sound? Some people say that you can hear faint sounds such as claps, crackles, and static sounds while Northern Lights are on the sky. However, the aurora noise is so rare that hearing it is possible only during times of maximum aurora activity, …
Northern Light Fact #2 – The Firefox
Have you heard about the Firefox that creates the Northern Lights? Northern Lights can be confusing. Nowadays we know Aurora Borealis is caused by Earth’s magnetic field and wildly flying particles from the sun, but can you imagine how hard it was to explain this phenomenon centuries ago? In Finland people tried to explain Northern …