It’s been quite a while, but growing up in New Hampshire, I had the good fortune to watch the northern lights play across the sky a few times. One of the most memorable was an evening spent with friends above the tree-line in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. Below us the clouds formed a blanket around the foothills of the peaks, lit dimly by a crescent moon, while above us the lights shimmered and flickered for hours. It was quite an experience. The science associated with the northern lights is pretty interesting as well: charged particles from the sun spiraling down the earth’s magnetic field lines where they interact with the upper atmosphere to create the show. There are a number of references to it across the web, of course, and NASA offers some good background. Check out the Themis satellite space weather link. If you’ve never been…