The Northern Lights in history
Its contents tell us the following beautiful story: "Fu-Pao, the mother of the Yellow Empire Shuan-Yuan, saw strong lightning moving around the star Su, which belongs to the constellation of Bei-Dou, and the light illuminated the whole area. After that she became pregnant." Stars were obviously visible and the observing direction was northward. The light was bright enough to illuminate the landscape. Lightning is a term that is often connected with the old auroral descriptions. The pregnancy is essential in this historical tale.

There exist at least five descriptions of the northern lights in the Old Testament. The most indisputable of these is the first chapter of Ezekiel.

The northern lights were seen on the 5th day of the 4th month in 593 BC. It is assumed that the Greek philosopher 		Anaximenes wrote about the same northern lights in his book. Moreover, Xenofanes wrote of "the accumulation of moving and burning clouds". At the same time, Hippocrates and Aeschylus developed the theory that the northern lights were just reflected sunlight. According to Aristotle's theory, the heat from the sun raised steam from the ground. The steam hit the fire element. It ignited and caused the northern lights.

Plutarch gave an absolutely sure description of the northern lights in 467 BC but it was probably just a quotation from missing writings of Anaxagoras: "During seventy days there was an enormous and furious figure in the sky. It was like a flaming cloud, which did not stay at its position but moved windingly and regularly, so that the glowing fragments were flying in all directions and fire was blazing as
Info Return Next 2 / 10

Written for Virtual Finland by Esa Turunen Ph.D., Jyrki Manninen Ph.D. and Professor Tauno Turunen

Close