A G2-class geomagnetic storm is in progress on Dec. 20th as Earth moves through the wake of a CME that struck our planet’s magnetic field yesterday.
High-latitude sky watchers were on alert for auroras on December 19, 2015. Look at these epic northern light pictures from Alaska.
The aurora borealis has intrigued people from ancient times, and still does today.
The Eskimos and Indians of North America have many stories to explain these northern lights.
One explains that the ends of the land and sea are bounded by an immense abyss, over which a narrow and dangerous pathway leads to the heavenly regions.
The sky is a great dome of hard material arched over the Earth.
There is a hole in it through which the spirits pass to the true heavens.
Only the spirits of those who have died a voluntary or violent death, and the Raven, have been over this pathway.
The spirits who live there light torches to guide the feet of new arrivals. This is the light of the aurora.
They can be seen there feasting and playing football with a walrus skull.
The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate with the people of the Earth.
They should always be answered in a whispering voice.
Youths dance to the aurora. The heavenly spirits are called selamiut, “sky-dwellers,” those who live in the sky.
[…] Here some other northern lights captured on December 20, 2015 in Alaska. […]