What does the aurora look like?
The Roman writer Seneca described the aurora almost 2,000 years ago. To him, it was like fiery flames in the sky. The light, he noted, was sometimes still and sometimes full of movement. He saw vivid reds in the aurora, white and yellow, a variety of scintillating colors and a pale light he compared to a faint and dying flame. The aurora may be a ghostly glimmer, low above the northern horizon. It may be a breathtaking spectacle of shimmering colors spread over the whole sky. The display is centered in the north. It may last all night though as a rule it is at its best before midnight. The light of the aurora is a pale wash of colors, usually too gauzy to hide the twinkling stars. The ghostly glow may pulse silently over the sky, now brighter, now dimmer. Sometimes for a while it remains still. The aurora is most often tinted with palest apple green. But it may throb with gauzy veils of rosy pink, pearly gray and pastel tints of Violet. The scintillating colors may settle down to a tis
