The night sky was alive with colour. Great curtains of green, lilac and magenta were moving with silent majesty directly above my head, spanning my entire field of vision, from the frozen fjord at my feet to the snow-muffled mountains at my back. It felt as if I was actually inside the aurora. I put my phone back in my pocket; no picture could adequately capture that feeling of sheer awe. Better to soak it all in.
I was left in no doubt why the Northern Lights make it on to every travel bucket list. Hitting the sweet spot where science and spirituality meet, there’s a sense of magic to their luminous, slowly-shifting presence that’s only increased when you understand their origins – that the particles creating these colours came all the way from the surface of the sun. Plunging into our atmosphere around the magnetic poles they collide with atoms and release their energy as light, with dazzling results.
