Aurora Labs Blog
From the Land of the Northern Lights, Aurora Labs is wishing you lots of love, next to your Valentine! Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️💚
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En cette belle journée de Saint Valentin, Aurora Labs vous souhaite beaucoup d’amour du Pays des Aurores Boréales ! ❤️💚
I am proud to present you the brand-new Aurora Forecast 5.0 app with its new features, that I have designed for Aurora Labs! Now it’s possible to choose a location or to even geolocalise yourself, in order to find out the current weather and auroral conditions in your area and to determine if it’s possible to see the Aurora! Now it’s very easy and fun to see if you should go out (or not) to hunt the Northern Lights, thanks to the colour coded tiles in the app! And no, you don’t need to know what is Bz, Kp, Bt, …
All the necessary data for forecasting and preparing your next Northern Light hunt – handy, in one single place, in this new app from Aurora Labs! Absolutely free and no ads!
Aurora forecast for the next few minutes for both Northern and Southern hemispheres, live Kp and solar wind data, 3 days Kp forecast, live Sun images and current and scheduled cloud coverage for the next few hours in multiple regions!
Don’t miss the magnificent Northern Lights when you’re out and about here in the Arctic! Hunt the Northern Lights professionally!
…And travel to the Arctic differently!
This period of the year means the beginning of the end of the Polar Night for regions in the Arctic. The polar night in Vadsø will end on the 17 of January, when the Sun will rise for the first time this year in the Arctic sky, for only 50 minutes. After this date, each day will mean the Sun will come out higher and higher in the sky and for longer periods. And this until May 17, when the Sun will never set for almost 2 months, marking the beginning of the Polar Day.
Earth carries out two types of rotations: one around the Sun, during the course of a year, and the second around its own axis, during 24 hours. At the same time, Earth is inclined in respect with the Sun, at an angle of approximately 23°, and remains tilted at this angle during the whole year.
This means that the Earth is illuminated by the Sun differently during one year. At and around the winter solstice (sometime around 22nd December each year), Earth is inclined in such a way that the North Pole and the region around the North Pole, points away from the Sun, meaning it is not illuminated by our star, which translates into a continuous night – phenomenon which we call the Polar Night.
Just take a look at the first part of this video from the California Academy of Sciences, and see how Earth is illuminated by the Sun during a whole year.
You can see that the length of the polar night varies in function of latitude: closer you are to the North Pole, longer the polar night is. At the exact location of the North Pole, the polar night lasts no less than 6 months! At lower latitudes, but still above the Arctic Circle, the Sun never rises for shorter periods. The shortest polar night occurs on regions exactly on the Polar Circle (at 66°N), where the Sun never rises for only 1 day, which is exactly the day of the Winter Solstice!
Moreover, in function of latitude, the Polar Night may be experienced differently, concerning the position of the Sun below the horizon. This means that during the polar night, closer to the Arctic Circle, the Sun will still be near the horizon (but still below it) during the normal “day” hours. Which means that twilight occurs – thus indirect light from the Sun beautifully illuminates these regions, and you are able to see the landscape and the surroundings. And it does it in a surreal blue lighting – which is what the amazing polar blue is! Vadsø in Northern Norway experiences this phenomenon during the whole period of the polar night.
Further up from the Arctic Circle, the Sun does not have time to get so close to the horizon, which means that no indirect light will illuminate these regions at all, which leads to a 24-hour long pitch-black night, which can last for months!
And the best part about the Polar Night? You can see the Northern Lights even during the “daytime”!
Regions below the Polar Circle experience a normal day/night cycle, which varies also in length, in function of the exact latitude.
Wishing you an amazing 2021 from the amazing Land of the Northern Lights! 😊🎆🎈🎀🎄🥂✨🎉🦌
In astronomy, a conjunction means the “meeting” of two planets in the night sky. Jupiter and Saturn, the biggest planets in our Solar System, can meet as well, but when they do, their conjunction is a “great” one – hence the term Great Conjunction!
Jupiter and Saturn are one of the brightest objects in the night sky. They look just like two very bright stars – but don’t mistake them for stars! They are planets, so they don’t create light themselves just like the stars (like our Sun does for example). They are “lit” only because of the reflection of the sunlight. Which is the same reason why the Moon shines in the night sky!
In their perpetual movement around the sun, it happens sometimes that planets “meet”. The word “meet” is quoted because the planets don’t actually meet in reality. It is just how we see things from here on Earth. In fact, the two planets are aligned in such a way in their orbits, that from Earth, we see them as if they came into contact with eachother. In reality though, they’re some million kilometres apart!
And why is this conjunction “great” you may ask? Well, this is because Saturn and Jupiter, due to their size, they are already bright even when they’re “apart”. When two bright lights touch each other, they are seen like only one light, even brighter! The same happens with the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.
Jupiter and Saturn are already close in the night sky since quite some time now. But on December 21 (thus tomorrow!), the two planets will be so close (less than 0.1 degrees) that they will look like an elongated, very bright star. So, stargazers, get ready for a Christmas treat!
The Great Conjunction occurs regularly, roughly every 20 years. But why is it so special this year?
In function on the position of the “meeting” with respect to the position of the Sun, the conjunction may be more or less bright. If this meeting place is too close to the Sun, the brightness diminishes. This year, the position is ideal for a very bright Great Conjunction!
Another thing to take into account is how close the two planets will appear to be. Not every 20 years the planets have such an apparent closeness! In fact, to get an idea of how rare this occurs, know that last time Jupiter and Saturn appeared so close, was in year 1226! It actually happened in 1623, but it was rather close to the Sun, which made it actually less visible.
You need to look in the night sky about 1 hour after sunset, almost anywhere on Earth, even in light polluted areas! In the Northern hemisphere look towards south-west. As for the Southern hemisphere, look towards the west. Needless to say that you will need a clear sky!
It will be impossible to miss such an impressive sight so, don’t worry, it will not be difficult to spot it!
As the Great Conjunction this year happens very close to Christmas, it is also called the “Christmas Star“, or the “Bethlehem Star“. To go even further, some astronomers believe that the Star of Bethlehem which led the Three Wise Men to the place where Jesus was born, might have actually been a Great Conjunction! But there are other theories that suggest that a supernova might have occurred that time. Or, was it indeed a divine miracle?