Aurora: the science of the Northern Lights, and how to see them skyatnightmagazine.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from skyatnightmagazine.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Although notoriously unpredictable, there are some ways to maximise chances of witnessing the aurora, says Sarah Marshall. Fickle, mysterious, but undoubtedly magical, the aurora borealis is one of nature s greatest wonders. A cascade of electronic streamers dancing across the northern hemisphere s night skies, the lights can occur at the right latitudes whenever there s enough activity and the sky is dark. A whole tourism industry of hotels, tours and even cruises has sprung up around the activity, all aiming to give people a better chance of witnessing the event with their own eyes. Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed. But there are some ways to improve your chances.
The Sámi on Camera
Photographs of the Sámi taken in the 19th and 20th centuries act as ‘emotional archives’, offering an alternative history of Europe’s longest surviving indigenous people.
Skolt Sámi man in Sevettijärvi, Inari municipality, Finland. Photograph by Ernest Dixon, 1950s. Courtesy of the Sámi Museum Siida, Finland.
At the end of the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years ago, groups of hunter-gatherers ventured into northern Scandinavia, becoming the region’s first inhabitants. From southern Norway, the Fosna – descendants of the nomadic Ahrensburg culture in north-central Europe – followed the thaw north to the Arctic Circle and populated the coastline of the Norwegian Sea. Around 1,000 km to the east, another group of nomads inhabiting the southern shores of Russia’s Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga also moved north and west to settle in Finnish Lapland. Intermixing and establishing settlements, they would become Europe’s longest survivin