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The Cosmologist and the Aurora
The Cosmologist and the Aurora By Dr. Sten Odenwald NASA/IMAGE satellite program A few weeks ago I returned from Norway having completed a one-week filming 'shoot' of an upcoming episode of NASA's Sci Files. With the memories of dancing aurora still fresh in my mind, I thought I would share with you some of my impressions of them. It isn't often that I feel compelled to share my personal experience of nature with the general public, because most of them would have no meaning to a wider audience. But in this particular instance I think there is an exception to be made. I have read dozens of eyewitness accounts, and seen hundreds of photos of aurora, but nothing prepared me for what I actually experienced. I will share a few of my impressions with you, while keeping others firmly under lock and key for my own private contemplation. The very first thing I noticed was that aurora do not simply appear in the starry sky like a light suddenly turned on in a darkened room. Instead, it is a sensual and even seductive process of growing into existence from out of nothingness. They do not rise up off the horizon and ascend to the zenith like a cloud chased by the afternoon winds. They seem to grow in brightness like a memory that clarifies as you bring it steadily to mind. Suddenly, it is there and you feel compelled to watch it as it continues to unfold. It is the kind of compulsion you feel at a fireworks celebration, or while listening to a Bach concerto. You don't want to blink or divert your attention for a single moment for fear of missing something wonderful in the next instant. So you stand in the dark, in the cold, watching your breath condense and fall to the ground, knowing that your patience will be well rewarded. You listen to the sound of your heartbeat, and marvel at the silence of these shapes and forms. The next thing you experience is a growing sense of awe, and a powerful feeling that you are standing in the presence of a force of nature. It is not the kind of force that a physicist can tell you about. It doesn't move matter, but instead it moves your thoughts with a persistence that is hard to explain in words. The longer you watch, the more are your thoughts pushed out of the light of consciousness as though acted upon by an irresistible force from above. As you watch the serpentine shapes move across the sky, you are staggered by their cadence and dynamism. Nothing you ever read in a textbook or account prepares you for this. With every tick of the watch, and also at a speed so fast the eye can hardly follow, the plenum of the draperies change in unexpected but not random ways. The draperies are not fixed in space or time. They are formed from pulsating beams of light that rain down the sky from high above, and march along the drapery from end to end. With their passing, which takes all of five seconds, the curtains begin to ripple and wave at their lowest edges as though caught in a celestial breeze. Like a snake that moves by rippling its body across the ground, aurora seem also to move in like manner, though as a scientists I know full well that this is but illusion. The experience of the dancing aurora literally rips words from your mouth like 'Oh my God!' and gasps of breath and even primal grunts. As you marvel at the rapid changes that race faster than a heartbeat, you can't help but see this as a wonderful and glorious moment in your life.As the aurora finally dissipate for the last time and you stumble your way in the dark back to your room, another thought begins to intrude. Why is it that so many northern folks from Lapland to Alaska seem to get this experience so dreadfully wrong? Without exception, all of the folk tales and lore which surrounds the aurora experience are sinister, negative and dreadful? Why so many stories of aurora as decapitating child stealers, and omens of war? And then the answer comes to you as clear as a bell. Sometimes the only value to ancient 'knowledge' is to remind us how far we have come from ignorance and superstition, to arrive at the warm fires of wisdom. It has been said that 'The Truth shall set you free'. So perhaps it is time to finally put away all the old stories much as we struggle to forget our nightmares. As you find your way into bed and turn off the lights you feel a sense of joy that is hard to describe at having finally seen such a beautiful phenomenon for the first time in your 50-odd years of life. Three hours later, you awaken to a daylight-filled room only to realize that it is only 2:30 AM in the morning by the clock on the night table. Looking out the window, from horizon to horizon you see curtains of light brighter than a full moon, which create a false-dawn. And so again you stand there with a lump in your throat, and watch the dance renew itself once more.

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