Norwegian northern lights

Norway is conveniently located for observation of northern lights, and therefore, Norwegians have had a central role in the research of northern lights. Hansteen, Birkeland and Størmer were all valuable contributors to the pioneer research on northern lights.

Carl Størmer
Carl Størmer (1874-1957) was a Norwegian mathematician and astronomer, and a pioneer photographer. He executed the first altimetry of northern lights, and was the first person to construct a camera able to capture the northern lights.

Christopher Hansteen
Christopher Hansteen (26 September 1784, Christiania – 11 April 1873, Christiania) was a Norwegian geophysicist, astronomer, and physicist. Hansteen is best known for his mapping of Earth’s magnetic field, and is looked upon as the founder of natural science in Norway. Hansteen’s work were carried through at a time when Norway was working to build an independent country after the detachment from Denmark. Therefore, he wished to make Norwegians appear as a well educated and accomplished group of people. His goal was to abolish superstition, but rather make room for scientific explanations to different phenomena. Hansteen worked with mapping out Earth’s magnetic field, and he combined this knowledge with observations of northern lights in arches in the sky. He then concluded with a hypothesis: «The observed northern lights arches had to be a part of a luminous ring, today called the auroral oval.» He claimed that the auroral oval had its center over the magnetic pole, and not the geographical pole. Hansteen published these ideas with the following conclusion: from this we are led to assume that there must be some connection between the northern lights and Earth’s magnetic field. However, it would go 100 years before this was widely accepted in the international research community, and 150 years before it was confirmed with observations.

Kristian Birkeland
Kristian Birkeland (1867-1917) was a Norwegian scientist and an important contributor to Norwegian science and history with his research on northern lights. When he began his research, there were no thorough nor convincing theories about what the northern lights actually were. His hypothesis was that the northern lights appeared when charged particles from the sun entered the earth's magnetic field. To test the hypothesis, he created a model of the earth (terrella) with a magnetic field surrounding it. Afterwards, he placed it in a box and pumped virtually all the air out of it. The Terrella was positively charged, and he sent negatively charged particles into the box. By doing this, he managed to create artificial northern lights around the magnetic poles. This miniature version of northern lights showed that they mostly occurred in a ring-formed structure around the magnetic poles.