The science lecture tonight covered the background of solar weather - the interaction between our sun and the varying systems of the Earths magnetosphere and atmosphere. Central to the lecture was the cause and the basics of the Aurora, of the shimmering, shifting pools of light above our heads.

There’s a story connected to this I love to tell but it’s best done so around a fire, under the moving skies themselves. I’ll save the story but offer this:

I know that the auroras are caused by the interaction between the particles of the solar wind and the upper atmosphere of the Earth, that particles from the sun sliding down into our atmosphere at the magnetic poles excite the electrons in the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, that when those excited electrons return to their static states they release light in varying wavelengths, that the light released shines in a set oval depending on the magnetic fields of the Earth, that the light released is what we call the auroras… I know all this. When I stare up into the sky and watch the stars hide behind a pulsating band of green or a writhing shield of red, the science is not the first thing, however, that comes to my mind. When I try to hold the sky within my sight, all that I can think of is magic.

If you’d like a taste of what we see nearly daily - a taste of why I’m here, take a look at the pictures.