in what continent or country is it where ive heard that in a certain time of the year the sky is on 'fire'?

Question

i dont mean, directly on fire, but ive heard of a place where the sky makes itself look like its on fire, where night time only lasts about an hour at the most. where is it? and at what time of the year?

if you have any other refferences similar to this, tell me please!

Answer 1

You are referring to Aurora Borealis. I am no expert on the subject, but this is how I understand. It may not be completely accurate, but a real scientist will be along soon to correct me, I hope.

So the sun spews solar flares regularly. The flares that reach earth are attracted to the poles, and they hit the atmosphere creating a spectacular display of lights. I know for sure that they are visible in Alaska, and my GUESS is that they are visible throughout the Arctic circle, or thereabouts. However, sometimes, when the earth is tilted at just the right angle towards the sun(sorry, don't know what time of year that is) AB is visible as far south as Wyoming and Colorado.

I do not know if it's also visible at the south pole. I don't know what time of year you're most likely to see it. I don't know anything. But now that you have the name: Aurora Borealis, you'll be able to do your research much more easily.

Answer 2

Yeah, it's at one or the other of the poles. In the northern hemisphere summer, on the solstice (which happened to be yesterday) the north pole got 24 hours of sunlight. and yesterday the south pole got 24 hours of darkness(southern winter). Cool huh? And the fire that you are referring to is either Aurora borealis in the northern high latitudes (check this out) www.rlchamber.com/ aurora.jpg (or) Aurora australis on the southern high latitudes. www2.abc.net.au/science/k2/ stn/march2000/posts/topic48768.shtm

it's a super cool phenomenon! Science is sooooo cool!

Answer 3

If you mean something like this

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200310/r11325_26829.jpg

then is aurora australis... impressive