Now’s a great time to go aurora spotting.
Now’s the perfect time to witness these glittering phenomena on either side of the Tasman.
The famed northern and southern lights have been studied for millennia, yet physicists are still learning about the phenomena. The ethereal, dancing ribbons of light in the night sky are called aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere and aurora australias in the South. Winter is the ideal season for aurora-spotting because it’s darker for longer. In New Zealand, Stewart Island, The Catlins and Lake Tekapo are favoured aurora-gazing destinations, while in Australia, south of Hobart can offer great views. An aurora occurs when charged particles flowing from the sun – called the solar wind – interact with Earth’s protective magnetic bubble. Some of those particles escape and fall toward our planet, and the energy released during their collisions with gases in Earth’s atmosphere generate the light associated with auroras. The colours of the aurora vary, depending on altitude and the kind of atoms involved. Just this year scientists from the University of Iowa discovered a new feature of the colourful light show when examining a video taken nearly two decades ago. The researchers describe multiple instances where a section of the diffuse aurora – the faint, background-like glow accompanying the more vivid light commonly associated with auroras – goes dark, and then after a short period of time, suddenly reappears. The researchers say the behaviour, which they call ‘diffuse auroral erasers’, has never been mentioned in the scientific literature. “The biggest thing about these erasers that we didn’t know before but know now is that they exist,” says Allison Jaynes, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa and study co-author. “It raises the question: Are these a common phenomenon that has been overlooked, or are they rare? Knowing they exist means there is a process that is creating them,” Jaynes continues, “and it may be a process that we haven’t started to look at yet because we never knew they were happening until now.”
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From the stunning aurora australis to the world’s best views of the Milky Way, New Zealand boasts many beautiful stargazing sites. Grab your telescope as we reveal the best places to take a look. mindfood.com/stargazing-newzealand