{"id":9734,"date":"2021-08-12T15:13:22","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T13:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/how-are-the-northern-lights-created\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T19:59:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T17:59:05","slug":"how-are-the-northern-lights-created","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/how-are-the-northern-lights-created\/","title":{"rendered":"How are the Northern Lights created?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With patches of green, yellow, red, or purple, the Northern Lights dance across the sky. Suddenly they&#8217;re there\u2014first gentle, then fierce and powerful. A few seconds later, they&#8217;ve vanished. Or have they?   <\/p>\n<p>The Northern Lights are hypnotic and captivating. When you see them, you can&#8217;t help but stare, mouth agape. When you don&#8217;t, they can keep you awake at night as you scan the horizon for a glimpse of green.  <\/p>\n<h2>Aurora borealis: devil&#8217;s light?<\/h2>\n<p>In the past, the <em>aurora borealis<\/em> was seen as a bad, devilish omen, especially when it turned red. Some thought that the\u2014flat\u2014Earth was surrounded by a sea of fire that would engulf the land. Others thought they saw fox tails burning in the sky.  <\/p>\n<p>The lights are formed at an altitude of 100 to 250 km above the Earth&#8217;s surface from electrically charged particles. These are carried by the solar wind and attracted to the magnetic North and South Poles. Near the poles, these particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen. The result is the magical, dancing light we call aurora borealis (or australis, in the Southern Hemisphere).   <\/p>\n<h2>Chances of seeing the Northern Lights<\/h2>\n<p>By keeping a close eye on the solar wind, we get an indication of how many particles are active and how likely it is that we&#8217;ll see the Northern Lights. During our Northern Lights trips, we check this every day and try to be in the right place at the right time. <\/p>\n<p>But of course, it remains a capricious phenomenon that&#8217;s difficult to predict with certainty\u2014even for scientists. In any case, the region around Troms\u00f8 is the area with the most Northern Lights sightings in Europe. That&#8217;s why we start our search there.  <\/p>\n<h2>Will you join our hunt for the famous Aurora Borealis?<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-891 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.seawindadventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Noorderlicht-Noorwegen-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Norway Northern Lights Lofoten Vester\u00e5len sailing trip\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\">We&#8217;re planning a Northern Lights photography trip (including a workshop in Troms\u00f8).<br \/>\nWant to be the first to know? Are you interested?  <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.seawindadventures.com\/en\/contact\/\">Let us know right now.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With patches of green, yellow, red, or purple, the Northern Lights dance across the sky. Suddenly they&#8217;re there\u2014first gentle, then fierce and powerful. A few seconds later, they&#8217;ve vanished. Or &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[190,191,148,192,193],"class_list":["post-9734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature-2","tag-lofoten-5","tag-northern-lights-2","tag-norway-2","tag-tromso-3","tag-vesteralen-3","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seawindadventures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}