July 28, 2024 • 14 mins
Join Jordan and Kit for the final episode of season 2 where they explore the science and mythology of auroras (Borealis and Australis)!
Episode transcripts: https://www.starrytimepodcast.com/episode-transcripts.html
Website: http://www.starrytimepodcast.com/
Socials: https://universeodon.com/@starrytimepod
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:44 The Science of Auroras
09:22 Myths and Folklore of Auroras
13:46 Outro
Keywords/Topics Covered: Aurora Borealis, Aurora Australis, Northern Lights, Southern Lights, Solar Wind, Magnetosphere, Coronal Mass Ejection, Solar Flare, Space Weather, Norse Mythology, Valkyries, Bifrost Bridge, Arctic Fox, Finnish Mythology, Viking Legends, Magnetic Poles, Solar Storms, Space Weather Prediction, Aurora Myths
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Jordan (00:00):
[Music]
(00:15):
Hi, I'm Jordan.
>> Kit (00:17):
And I'm Kit.
>> Jordan (00:18):
Welcome to Starry Time
>> Kit (00:20):
Asterisms Edition,
>> Jordan (00:21):
where stars plus lines equal
stories
>> Kit (00:25):
with an asterisk.
>> Jordan (00:27):
In these episodes, we'll explore ideas,
concepts, or people that didn't make it into the main
show or that we just want to talk about a little bit more.
>> Kit (00:36):
This episode also marks our very
last episode of season two.
>> Jordan (00:42):
Quests and Curses!
>> Kit (00:45):
Yes, very exciting. Uh, we've
already started planning season three, but we're going to take
a break before launching that next season.
>> Jordan (00:53):
So be sure to follow us on our socials at
Starrytimepod on the Universeodon server, on
Mastodon, and on Twitter, Tumblr,
and YouTube to keep up to date with all things
Starry Time.
>> Kit (01:05):
In today's episode, we're going to be talking about Aurora,
which include Aurora Borealis.
>> Jordan (01:11):
The Northern Lights,
>> Kit (01:12):
and Aurora Australis,
>> Jordan (01:14):
the Southern Lights.
>> Kit (01:15):
This astronomical phenomenon of Aurora and
Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis actually
have nothing to do with the constellations Corona Borealis
or Corona Australis.
>> Jordan (01:25):
Just similar names, which, not confusing
at all, really.
>> Kit (01:30):
Yeah. No one's confused.
>> Jordan (01:31):
No one at all. In today's episode,
we'll discuss what Aurorae are and where to find
them and dip a toe into some of the myths and
folklore surrounding these beautiful light
shows.
>> Kit (01:44):
So, first things first, NASA describes
aurora as, and I quote, "a natural
display of light in the night sky."
>> Jordan (01:51):
These displays, as NASA calls them,
are actually quite stunning. They've been
described in various places as bright ribbons
across the sky or as curtains or
spirals of arcs of light. And that's what they look
like. Swirls of blue, swirls of green and
red, and occasionally, if you're lucky,
(02:11):
pink and yellow as well.
>> Kit (02:13):
And those colors are a reflection of the processes
that create auroras, which is basically
the result of solar wind interacting with our
magnetosphere.
>> Jordan (02:22):
All right, so let's break that down a little bit. At all
times, our sun is emitting solar
winds into the solar system,
but most of the time, the magnetic field
around the earth protects us, and no
light shows. We don't really see anything happening.
>> Kit (02:39):
Yes. So the magnetic field around Earth, which is called the
magnetosphere, is generated
from the molten iron
core of our planet. And it's actually not
a circular field around us. It's
actually more of a comet shape. So the side
facing the sun, which is also called the day
side, extends six to
(03:02):
ten times the radius of the Earth outward, sort of
like a bubble. But the back, the
part facing away from the sun, has what's called
a magnetotail.
>> Jordan (03:12):
Magnetotail. I like that.
>> Kit (03:15):
Yeah, magnetotail. And that
tail sort of trailing behind us,
um, changes in length, but is usually on the order of
100 Earth radii. The shape of
the magnetosphere is also important because at very high
latitudes, like our poles, the north and south pole,
the field is distorted and compressed due to
(03:35):
the effects with the solar winds. What ends up happening is that
the magnetosphere is sort of pinched around
the poles before extending into the tail.
>> Jordan (03:44):
Thankfully, this magnetosphere is what protects us
both from solar wind, but also our
least favorite types of radiation, solar
and cosmic.
>> Kit (03:53):
Yeah, and as you mentioned before, this is happening all
the time. Solar winds coming, cosmic radiation,
lots of things are sort of flying about, and our
beautiful magnetosphere protects us, and we don't see
aurora. But sometimes
our sun is, it's, ah,
churning, burning,
>> Jordan (04:12):
Churning and burning. That's our sun, all right.
>> Kit (04:15):
it's churnin', burnin' . And it has its own magnetic field
gymnastics that are happening on the surface. And as
a result of what's happening on the surface of the sun
and throughout the different layers of the sun,
sometimes we have these big solar storms
that create coronal mass ejections and
solar flares.
>> Jordan (04:34):
As a reminder, both coronal mass
ejections and solar flares are
caused by the magnetic dynamics and
realignment in the sun. But
coronal mass ejections are big,
electrified plasma bubbles,
whereas solar flares are more like
bursts of electromagnetic radiation.
>> Kit (04:56):
And when this energy comes our way,
the magnetosphere deflects some of these charged
particles. But when they're coming en masse like
this, not all of them can be, sort of, deflected.
>> Jordan (05:08):
Can't catch them all.
>> Kit (05:09):
Exactly. So some of this
material travels along the magnetic fields around the
earth and starts smashing into the gases in our
atmosphere.
>> Jordan (05:18):
And this is what explains why we have
Aurora Borealis and Aurora
Australis and why this phenomenon
tends to happen towards the poles because
of the compression of the magnetic field in
those areas.
>> Kit (05:33):
Exactly. And this also explains why we have different
colors. So these particles that are
smashing into our atmosphere, when they hit red, we're
talking about very excited
oxygen at high altitudes. When we see
green, it's excited oxygen at lower altitudes,
and then we see nitrogen that turns blue and
purple.
>> Jordan (05:53):
In our off season, I'm going to do a lot of research
into excited oxygen. [laughter]
Other colors, such as yellow and pink,
can show up as a mix of green and blue.
But, all right, Kit, now, we know what causes
these Aurora, but I remember earlier this summer,
there was a lot of talk about folks being able to see
auroras pretty far south, like in
(06:15):
Michigan and Pennsylvania, but also
as far south as Florida. So how do
astronomers know when and where we're going to see
these auroras?
>> Kit (06:25):
The recent, and just to date
us, we're talking about spring and summer
2024. So this recent news about
aurora was caused by a massive solar storm
that was 15 or 16
times the size of the earth,
which, uh, just for comparison's
sake, usually the storms that are happening,
(06:48):
the typical storms that are happening on the sun are one to three times
the size of the earth. So these recent aurora that we've been able
to see really far south are the result of this huge, huge,
huge storm.
>> Jordan (06:57):
Big, big storm, everybody. That's why you got
a sneak peek at the lights. But
basically, these events produce more than
typical particles, which in turn end up
further south from the magnetic poles. Is that
correct?
>> Kit (07:12):
Yeah, exactly. So it extends what they call
the auroral oval.
>> Jordan (07:17):
Oh . The bigger the storm, the bigger
the aurora oval.
>> Kit (07:22):
Say that five times fast.
>> Jordan (07:24):
The bigger the storm, the bigger the auroral oval
[laughter] Rural juror,
>> Kit (07:29):
rural juror! [laughter]
>> Jordan (07:31):
Auroral oval. And I did read that on
rare occasions during very, very big storms, I
guess, the Aurora Borealis has been seen in southern
U.S. states as Texas and Florida
and in the Mediterranean. And the
Aurora Australis has been seen as far
north as Uruguay, almost
(07:51):
at the equator.
>> Kit (07:53):
Mhm. More typically, though, as we mentioned, they're
in Arctic areas, so far north
and Antarctic, far south latitudes. Just because,
again, as we mentioned before, of the location of the magnetic
poles of the earth.
>> Jordan (08:06):
That makes sense.
>> Kit (08:07):
So how do we know when they're going to happen? I think is still
a really good question. We know when they're going to happen
because scientists are watching the sun for solar storms
that might create these kinds of events.
>> Jordan (08:18):
Ah. They're on Aurora watch at all times because they
love auroras. Right? That's got to be it.
>> Kit (08:23):
I'm sure that they do love aurora but
it's also because these kinds of solar storms can have
impacts on GPS, power grids,
radio signals, satellites. There was a flare in
1989 that caused a nine hour
electric outage in Quebec.
>> Jordan (08:39):
So you're not saying it's just because they're big, big fans, huh?
All right, this can get pretty serious.
>> Kit (08:44):
So it's probably not surprising to know that we've definitely
got eyes on the sun. I mean, not literally.
>> Jordan (08:49):
Yeah. I mean, you'll go blind, but.
>> Kit (08:50):
Right. Don't, don't look at the sun. In fact,
NOAA, which stands for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration has a space weather
prediction center, a website where you can find out
current space weather conditions and aurora forecast. So
I'll definitely be sure to put that into our social so you can take a
look at it. [Music]
>> Jordan (09:22):
Kit, I think we did a great job of breaking down
the science of aurora. So let's talk a little bit
about the myths and folklore that have surrounded this
phenomenon. First things first, let's talk
about these names. The term Aurora
Borealis comes by way of Galileo, who
was drawing inspiration from Greco- Roman mythology.
Aurora is the god of dawn,
(09:44):
Boreas is the god of the north wind,
and Auster is the god of the southern wind.
>> Kit (09:50):
But the ancient Greeks themselves don't really have a myth
about aurora.
>> Jordan (09:54):
Which kind of makes sense, because unless it was
15 to 16 times larger than
the average solar storm, it's unlikely
that they'd be able to see aurora at their latitude.
>> Kit (10:06):
Exactly. It wouldn't be common enough for them to necessarily
build a myth around.
>> Jordan (10:10):
By contrast, Vikings and other Nordic
groups, as well as Indigenous peoples in the far north
and south, have a number of beliefs and myths
about aurora.
>> Kit (10:20):
Yeah. And so here we're seeing that classic use of
a myth in folklore to explain the natural world,
something we've talked about time and time again on this
podcast.
>> Jordan (10:29):
So in Norse mythology, they
believed that aurora were lights
reflecting off the shields of Valkyries sent
by Odin.
>> Kit (10:39):
And, of course, Valkyries were women warriors
that ferried worthy warriors to Valhalla, which was sort
of the warrior's heaven in Norse mythology.
And Odin was the sort of big daddy god of
Norse mythology who, again, ruled over
Valhalla.
>> Jordan (10:54):
And if you thought Zeus left, uh, a little bit
to be desired, Odin
himself has quite a few foibles.
However, in Nordic myth, aurora were
also associated with the Bifrost
Bridge, which some of us are familiar with
from Marvel Comics or the Thor movies.
(11:14):
And it's a part of Norse mythology that connects
earth, Midgard, to
Asgard, the place where gods live.
>> Kit (11:22):
Yeah, I really liked this myth, and we haven't
really talked a lot about Nordic or Norse mythology
at all on the pod, so it's been kind of fun to learn a little
bit more about that. Another origin story of the
aurora comes from Finland, where the Aurora
Borealis are called
revontulet.
>> Jordan (11:40):
Ravon to let.
>> Kit (11:42):
Ravon- to- let. I don't know if that's right.
>> Jordan (11:45):
Have either of us ever worked on our Finnish? Because I'm not
even sure I think I went with a French or something entirely
wrong. But yes, what does revontulet translate
to?
>> Kit (11:54):
So it actually translates to fire
fox. And the story here is that the
aurora are created by Arctic Foxes
that run so fast across the
sky that they create sparks.
>> Jordan (12:06):
I love this myth. I mean, is it any relation to
Firefox, the browser or what?
>> Kit (12:13):
Sadly, no. But I did see pictures of
Arctic Foxes while I was doing research about this,
and wow. They are very
cute.
>> Jordan (12:22):
Cute!
Staying in this part of the world. In Iceland, it was
said that the northern lights could relieve
childbearing pain, if only. And
Sweden, they were thought to be a sign of good news,
a harbinger of a good harvest in the coming year.
>> Kit (12:40):
Meanwhile, among some Cree People, aurora were thought
of as the spirits of loved ones reaching out. While some
Algonquin Peoples thought of the aurora as
a fire lit by their cultural hero to remind
them that he was watching over them as he moved north,
creating the world.
>> Jordan (12:55):
Sometimes people saw aurora as a
warning or something more ominous. For
example, the Fox or
Meskwaki people are said to have seen
aurora as restless spirits
seeking vengeance.
>> Kit (13:09):
Overall, there just seems to be so much
diversity and meaning behind these lights in the
night sky across time, place, and people.
So instead of trying to detail them all here, I
will definitely post some sources with additional
myths for folks to check out on our socials,
which you should be following since we're going to take a quick
break before season three.
(13:31):
So at StarryTimePod on the Universeodon server
and Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube.
Click that automatic download button on your
favorite podcast streaming platform so you
don't miss our episodes when we come back.
>> Jordan (13:45):
That sounds great, Kit.
>> Kit (13:46):
Thank you all for joining us today for the final
episode of season two.
>> Jordan (13:51):
Quests and curses.
We have our slate of constellations selected,
and we're super excited for season three.
So give us a little bit of a head start and we'll
be back with more weekly astronomy,
mythology, and constellation content for you
all real, real soon. [Music]
>> Kit (14:19):
This has been Kit
>> Jordan (14:20):
And Jordan.
>> Kit (14:22):
Sisters, lovers of stars and stories.
>> Jordan (14:25):
And we'll see you next season
>> Kit (14:27):
On Starry Time. [Music]
[Music]
(00:15):
Hi, I'm Jordan.
>> Kit (00:17):
And I'm Kit.
>> Jordan (00:18):
Welcome to Starry Time
>> Kit (00:20):
Asterisms Edition,
>> Jordan (00:21):
where stars plus lines equal
stories
>> Kit (00:25):
with an asterisk.
>> Jordan (00:27):
In these episodes, we'll explore ideas,
concepts, or people that didn't make it into the main
show or that we just want to talk about a little bit more.
>> Kit (00:36):
This episode also marks our very
last episode of season two.
>> Jordan (00:42):
Quests and Curses!
>> Kit (00:45):
Yes, very exciting. Uh, we've
already started planning season three, but we're going to take
a break before launching that next season.
>> Jordan (00:53):
So be sure to follow us on our socials at
Starrytimepod on the Universeodon server, on
Mastodon, and on Twitter, Tumblr,
and YouTube to keep up to date with all things
Starry Time.
>> Kit (01:05):
In today's episode, we're going to be talking about Aurora,
which include Aurora Borealis.
>> Jordan (01:11):
The Northern Lights,
>> Kit (01:12):
and Aurora Australis,
>> Jordan (01:14):
the Southern Lights.
>> Kit (01:15):
This astronomical phenomenon of Aurora and
Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis actually
have nothing to do with the constellations Corona Borealis
or Corona Australis.
>> Jordan (01:25):
Just similar names, which, not confusing
at all, really.
>> Kit (01:30):
Yeah. No one's confused.
>> Jordan (01:31):
No one at all. In today's episode,
we'll discuss what Aurorae are and where to find
them and dip a toe into some of the myths and
folklore surrounding these beautiful light
shows.
>> Kit (01:44):
So, first things first, NASA describes
aurora as, and I quote, "a natural
display of light in the night sky."
>> Jordan (01:51):
These displays, as NASA calls them,
are actually quite stunning. They've been
described in various places as bright ribbons
across the sky or as curtains or
spirals of arcs of light. And that's what they look
like. Swirls of blue, swirls of green and
red, and occasionally, if you're lucky,
(02:11):
pink and yellow as well.
>> Kit (02:13):
And those colors are a reflection of the processes
that create auroras, which is basically
the result of solar wind interacting with our
magnetosphere.
>> Jordan (02:22):
All right, so let's break that down a little bit. At all
times, our sun is emitting solar
winds into the solar system,
but most of the time, the magnetic field
around the earth protects us, and no
light shows. We don't really see anything happening.
>> Kit (02:39):
Yes. So the magnetic field around Earth, which is called the
magnetosphere, is generated
from the molten iron
core of our planet. And it's actually not
a circular field around us. It's
actually more of a comet shape. So the side
facing the sun, which is also called the day
side, extends six to
(03:02):
ten times the radius of the Earth outward, sort of
like a bubble. But the back, the
part facing away from the sun, has what's called
a magnetotail.
>> Jordan (03:12):
Magnetotail. I like that.
>> Kit (03:15):
Yeah, magnetotail. And that
tail sort of trailing behind us,
um, changes in length, but is usually on the order of
100 Earth radii. The shape of
the magnetosphere is also important because at very high
latitudes, like our poles, the north and south pole,
the field is distorted and compressed due to
(03:35):
the effects with the solar winds. What ends up happening is that
the magnetosphere is sort of pinched around
the poles before extending into the tail.
>> Jordan (03:44):
Thankfully, this magnetosphere is what protects us
both from solar wind, but also our
least favorite types of radiation, solar
and cosmic.
>> Kit (03:53):
Yeah, and as you mentioned before, this is happening all
the time. Solar winds coming, cosmic radiation,
lots of things are sort of flying about, and our
beautiful magnetosphere protects us, and we don't see
aurora. But sometimes
our sun is, it's, ah,
churning, burning,
>> Jordan (04:12):
Churning and burning. That's our sun, all right.
>> Kit (04:15):
it's churnin', burnin' . And it has its own magnetic field
gymnastics that are happening on the surface. And as
a result of what's happening on the surface of the sun
and throughout the different layers of the sun,
sometimes we have these big solar storms
that create coronal mass ejections and
solar flares.
>> Jordan (04:34):
As a reminder, both coronal mass
ejections and solar flares are
caused by the magnetic dynamics and
realignment in the sun. But
coronal mass ejections are big,
electrified plasma bubbles,
whereas solar flares are more like
bursts of electromagnetic radiation.
>> Kit (04:56):
And when this energy comes our way,
the magnetosphere deflects some of these charged
particles. But when they're coming en masse like
this, not all of them can be, sort of, deflected.
>> Jordan (05:08):
Can't catch them all.
>> Kit (05:09):
Exactly. So some of this
material travels along the magnetic fields around the
earth and starts smashing into the gases in our
atmosphere.
>> Jordan (05:18):
And this is what explains why we have
Aurora Borealis and Aurora
Australis and why this phenomenon
tends to happen towards the poles because
of the compression of the magnetic field in
those areas.
>> Kit (05:33):
Exactly. And this also explains why we have different
colors. So these particles that are
smashing into our atmosphere, when they hit red, we're
talking about very excited
oxygen at high altitudes. When we see
green, it's excited oxygen at lower altitudes,
and then we see nitrogen that turns blue and
purple.
>> Jordan (05:53):
In our off season, I'm going to do a lot of research
into excited oxygen. [laughter]
Other colors, such as yellow and pink,
can show up as a mix of green and blue.
But, all right, Kit, now, we know what causes
these Aurora, but I remember earlier this summer,
there was a lot of talk about folks being able to see
auroras pretty far south, like in
(06:15):
Michigan and Pennsylvania, but also
as far south as Florida. So how do
astronomers know when and where we're going to see
these auroras?
>> Kit (06:25):
The recent, and just to date
us, we're talking about spring and summer
2024. So this recent news about
aurora was caused by a massive solar storm
that was 15 or 16
times the size of the earth,
which, uh, just for comparison's
sake, usually the storms that are happening,
(06:48):
the typical storms that are happening on the sun are one to three times
the size of the earth. So these recent aurora that we've been able
to see really far south are the result of this huge, huge,
huge storm.
>> Jordan (06:57):
Big, big storm, everybody. That's why you got
a sneak peek at the lights. But
basically, these events produce more than
typical particles, which in turn end up
further south from the magnetic poles. Is that
correct?
>> Kit (07:12):
Yeah, exactly. So it extends what they call
the auroral oval.
>> Jordan (07:17):
Oh . The bigger the storm, the bigger
the aurora oval.
>> Kit (07:22):
Say that five times fast.
>> Jordan (07:24):
The bigger the storm, the bigger the auroral oval
[laughter] Rural juror,
>> Kit (07:29):
rural juror! [laughter]
>> Jordan (07:31):
Auroral oval. And I did read that on
rare occasions during very, very big storms, I
guess, the Aurora Borealis has been seen in southern
U.S. states as Texas and Florida
and in the Mediterranean. And the
Aurora Australis has been seen as far
north as Uruguay, almost
(07:51):
at the equator.
>> Kit (07:53):
Mhm. More typically, though, as we mentioned, they're
in Arctic areas, so far north
and Antarctic, far south latitudes. Just because,
again, as we mentioned before, of the location of the magnetic
poles of the earth.
>> Jordan (08:06):
That makes sense.
>> Kit (08:07):
So how do we know when they're going to happen? I think is still
a really good question. We know when they're going to happen
because scientists are watching the sun for solar storms
that might create these kinds of events.
>> Jordan (08:18):
Ah. They're on Aurora watch at all times because they
love auroras. Right? That's got to be it.
>> Kit (08:23):
I'm sure that they do love aurora but
it's also because these kinds of solar storms can have
impacts on GPS, power grids,
radio signals, satellites. There was a flare in
1989 that caused a nine hour
electric outage in Quebec.
>> Jordan (08:39):
So you're not saying it's just because they're big, big fans, huh?
All right, this can get pretty serious.
>> Kit (08:44):
So it's probably not surprising to know that we've definitely
got eyes on the sun. I mean, not literally.
>> Jordan (08:49):
Yeah. I mean, you'll go blind, but.
>> Kit (08:50):
Right. Don't, don't look at the sun. In fact,
NOAA, which stands for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration has a space weather
prediction center, a website where you can find out
current space weather conditions and aurora forecast. So
I'll definitely be sure to put that into our social so you can take a
look at it. [Music]
>> Jordan (09:22):
Kit, I think we did a great job of breaking down
the science of aurora. So let's talk a little bit
about the myths and folklore that have surrounded this
phenomenon. First things first, let's talk
about these names. The term Aurora
Borealis comes by way of Galileo, who
was drawing inspiration from Greco- Roman mythology.
Aurora is the god of dawn,
(09:44):
Boreas is the god of the north wind,
and Auster is the god of the southern wind.
>> Kit (09:50):
But the ancient Greeks themselves don't really have a myth
about aurora.
>> Jordan (09:54):
Which kind of makes sense, because unless it was
15 to 16 times larger than
the average solar storm, it's unlikely
that they'd be able to see aurora at their latitude.
>> Kit (10:06):
Exactly. It wouldn't be common enough for them to necessarily
build a myth around.
>> Jordan (10:10):
By contrast, Vikings and other Nordic
groups, as well as Indigenous peoples in the far north
and south, have a number of beliefs and myths
about aurora.
>> Kit (10:20):
Yeah. And so here we're seeing that classic use of
a myth in folklore to explain the natural world,
something we've talked about time and time again on this
podcast.
>> Jordan (10:29):
So in Norse mythology, they
believed that aurora were lights
reflecting off the shields of Valkyries sent
by Odin.
>> Kit (10:39):
And, of course, Valkyries were women warriors
that ferried worthy warriors to Valhalla, which was sort
of the warrior's heaven in Norse mythology.
And Odin was the sort of big daddy god of
Norse mythology who, again, ruled over
Valhalla.
>> Jordan (10:54):
And if you thought Zeus left, uh, a little bit
to be desired, Odin
himself has quite a few foibles.
However, in Nordic myth, aurora were
also associated with the Bifrost
Bridge, which some of us are familiar with
from Marvel Comics or the Thor movies.
(11:14):
And it's a part of Norse mythology that connects
earth, Midgard, to
Asgard, the place where gods live.
>> Kit (11:22):
Yeah, I really liked this myth, and we haven't
really talked a lot about Nordic or Norse mythology
at all on the pod, so it's been kind of fun to learn a little
bit more about that. Another origin story of the
aurora comes from Finland, where the Aurora
Borealis are called
revontulet.
>> Jordan (11:40):
Ravon to let.
>> Kit (11:42):
Ravon- to- let. I don't know if that's right.
>> Jordan (11:45):
Have either of us ever worked on our Finnish? Because I'm not
even sure I think I went with a French or something entirely
wrong. But yes, what does revontulet translate
to?
>> Kit (11:54):
So it actually translates to fire
fox. And the story here is that the
aurora are created by Arctic Foxes
that run so fast across the
sky that they create sparks.
>> Jordan (12:06):
I love this myth. I mean, is it any relation to
Firefox, the browser or what?
>> Kit (12:13):
Sadly, no. But I did see pictures of
Arctic Foxes while I was doing research about this,
and wow. They are very
cute.
>> Jordan (12:22):
Cute!
Staying in this part of the world. In Iceland, it was
said that the northern lights could relieve
childbearing pain, if only. And
Sweden, they were thought to be a sign of good news,
a harbinger of a good harvest in the coming year.
>> Kit (12:40):
Meanwhile, among some Cree People, aurora were thought
of as the spirits of loved ones reaching out. While some
Algonquin Peoples thought of the aurora as
a fire lit by their cultural hero to remind
them that he was watching over them as he moved north,
creating the world.
>> Jordan (12:55):
Sometimes people saw aurora as a
warning or something more ominous. For
example, the Fox or
Meskwaki people are said to have seen
aurora as restless spirits
seeking vengeance.
>> Kit (13:09):
Overall, there just seems to be so much
diversity and meaning behind these lights in the
night sky across time, place, and people.
So instead of trying to detail them all here, I
will definitely post some sources with additional
myths for folks to check out on our socials,
which you should be following since we're going to take a quick
break before season three.
(13:31):
So at StarryTimePod on the Universeodon server
and Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube.
Click that automatic download button on your
favorite podcast streaming platform so you
don't miss our episodes when we come back.
>> Jordan (13:45):
That sounds great, Kit.
>> Kit (13:46):
Thank you all for joining us today for the final
episode of season two.
>> Jordan (13:51):
Quests and curses.
We have our slate of constellations selected,
and we're super excited for season three.
So give us a little bit of a head start and we'll
be back with more weekly astronomy,
mythology, and constellation content for you
all real, real soon. [Music]
>> Kit (14:19):
This has been Kit
>> Jordan (14:20):
And Jordan.
>> Kit (14:22):
Sisters, lovers of stars and stories.
>> Jordan (14:25):
And we'll see you next season
>> Kit (14:27):
On Starry Time. [Music]
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