Author: Melanie Windridge
Before I get into the review I would like to tell a short tale of serendipity in action. My lab partner and I had agreed to undertake a final year project enigmatically entitled ‘Use of a jam jar magnetometer to record auroral phenomena’. What does a jam jar have to do with detecting auroras you ask? Not much to be honest. It’s more to do with the magnet inside it and the theory behind it changing its orientation as the Earth’s magnetic field fluctuates – a precursor to auroral phenomena. Thinking about where to start my search for theoretical understanding what should I find at the top of a Waterstones escalator but Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights. Bingo.
The purpose of the book is twofold. For one it aims to explain the physics behind the aurora. Why it forms and how it forms, as well as the people involved in furthering this understanding and establishing our understanding of the phenomena to date. The second purpose of the book is to explore what the aurora means to people. It’s history in regions where it is common and not so common, the significance it has for some and the pleasure it brings to many. Through interviews with experts, sky watchers, painters and brewers Melanie tells the story of the aurora from its humble beginnings as boiling plasma being ejected from the sun at 600km/s to these charged particles finally entering the atmosphere and exciting the atoms present to produce the bright lights in the sky we know as the aurora.
The physics of the system is explained with clarity, figures and enough detail to entice and whet the appetite of the popular scientist by covering broad swathes of physics like; how the sun generates and propagates its magnetic field, how this deforms the Earth’s natural magnetic field which protects us from the most harmful effects of space weather and what conditions induce magnetic reconnection in plasma and begin the chain reaction that ultimately ends with the lights in the sky. This is expanded on by discussing the implications of these silent geomagnetic storms raging above our heads by discussing the effects on electricity networks due to geomagnetically induced currents and to the satellites essential to modern life. All without causing the cranial equivalent of a solar flare.
Interviews are used to bookend the physics with seamless transitions between explanations and talking to sky watchers in Scotland about their experiences. The author explores what makes the aurora mysterious to us and asks others how they have come to encounter the aurora and view it. Perhaps one of the most memorable for me was an interview with some pilots who had flown in and above the aurora only to produce a beer by the same name. The book is written in such a way that it also appeals to the wandering soul, with the author’s personal ventures into remote parts of Iceland and Norway in search of the aurora, told in vivid detail and her personal reasons for wanting to chase the dancing lights. The book culminates with her expedition into the Norwegian wilderness, the challenge of extreme cold and the unanswerable question of ‘will I see the lights tonight?’.
Personal feelings aside about a book that singlehandedly gave me a huge boost in all of the relevant aspects of magnetohydrodynamics, solar and magnetospheric physics I think that this book would be a welcome addition to any personal science collection amongst books evoking the glamour and mystery of the quantum world and those chronicling the odyssey of our understanding of space and time. Well written and flowing (much like the aurora) Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights tells the story of a mesmerizing and tangible phenomena while exploring its practical and spiritual effect on human life, as well as feeding the human desire to understand that which awes us.
Michael Robson 