Create Your Own Northern Lights! Ah, Aurora Borealis, You Make Good Web 2.0

Of all the things I didn’t get to do before I left Sweden, the one thing I have to go back to do is to see Aurora Borealis, or the “Northern Lights.”  The phenomenon occurs in our ionosphere when ionized gases (like oxygen and nitrogen) get excited from the solar wind particles coming in.  The result of the excitation of these gases is a photon of light.  So those crazy Star Trek V ribbons of light that you can see in the sky in the polar regions is excited gas bouncing around in the ionosphere.

What this post was actually about was the cool make-your-own-aurora generator that the Visit Norway website has up right now.  Go make your own Northern Lights – pretty cool!