JACKSON, Wyo. — Between April 23 and 24, the Northern Lights made an appearance in the sky over Jackson Hole.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Northern Lights are an astronomical phenomena also known as the aurora borealis, which are curtains of colored light visible in the night sky. The lights are named for the Roman goddess of dawn and come from collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere.
While green is the most common color to see associated with the Northern Lights, it’s also possible to see yellows, blues, purples and occasionally whites, oranges and reds.
There are many mythologies associated with the Northern Lights. In Greenland and Norway, the lights can be seen as souls of women or children who have died and are dancing and waving in the sky, or the Valkyries taking fallen warriors to Valhalla. In Estonia, the lights are seen as sleighs taking guests to a wedding feast.
The Inupiat (Inuit) see the aurora as walrus, whale or salmon spirits, while some other tribes in the Arctic and the U.S. see the lights as a foreboding, ominous sign of things to come. Some Anishnabek (Algonquin) peoples and tribes from the Great Plains believe the lights comes from a fire that either a hero or their enemies are making farther north.
Despite their association with the night sky, the Northern Lights are actually happening all the time. Sky conditions determine when and where they become visible.
Wyoming is noted as one of the best places to see the aurora in the continental U.S., and forecasts can be found on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website.
