Aurora Borealis
This is the second cache in the third series of four different “Wonders” cache series. These caches represent the “Natural Wonders of the World.” Please look at the GC map and plan your route accordingly. These are very narrow roads. There’s not a lot of traffic but, please stay safe! If you intend to make the entire series in one trip, read the description for #1 and #7, it’ll help on the time and safety! At each of the first six caches in the series, please take note of the clue left for the final cache which is not at its listed coordinates.
This series takes place on Salmon Creek Road, please start from the middle of the town of Bodega. If you haven’t already cached them, there are some really great caches in this area! Okay, so the GC map or even the one on your smart phone will show a road that looks like it connects to Coleman Valley Road. It might, but it’s POSTED as private road so we didn’t do it. Plan this as a “One-way and then turn back around and go back to Bodega” trip! If anyone knows anything different about this road, please let me know and I’ll change this up accordingly!
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky, particularly in the Polar Regions, caused by the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth's magnetic field. An aurora is usually observed at night and typically occurs in the ionosphere. It is also referred to as a polar aurora or, collectively, as polar lights. These phenomena are commonly visible between 60 and 72 degrees north and south latitudes, which place them in a ring just within the Arctic and Antarctic polar circles. Auroras do occur deeper inside the polar regions, but these are infrequent and often invisible to the naked eye.
These northern polar lights appear inadvertently from September to October and March to April. Often seen as a greenish glow or occasionally a faint red, the lights consist of solar wind and particles that appear as “curtains” or streamers extending in an east-west direction across the sky. Shaped by the earth’s magnetic field, the lights are constantly changing and evolving. The Cree call this phenomenon the “Dance of the Spirits.”
In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. The chance of visibility of the aurora borealis increases with proximity to the North Magnetic Pole.
Auroras result from emissions of photons in the Earth's upper atmosphere, above 80 km (50 miles), from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state. They are ionized or excited by the collision of solar wind particles being funneled down and accelerated along the Earth's magnetic field lines.