Wouldn't be the end of the world, just the destruction of all modern technology. Millions would likely die, sure, but the end of the world won't be a light show. It'd be from a direct hit from a solar flare and we'd never see it coming, literally.
1. They can be faint, such that you need a camera with a long exposure to really see them - but other times they fill the sky and are nearly as bright as the moon. 2. They sometimes move very slowly and other times are quite quick. I almost filmed some in real time because I was curious about this - I did some 2 second exposure time lapses so these are more similar to real time. Check out my other vid on this topic to see them.
Wonderful. I remember seeing the aurora borealis when we lived in northern North Dakota from 1962 to 1964. From the green and yellow curtains on the northern horizon to drifting, shifting clouds of pink all the way to the southern horizon. I'm glad you're looking into the phenomenon with both a scientist's point of view and as someone who appreciates the majesty of the spectacle.
Auroral activity varies on an approximate 11 year cycle. They are most visible in the winter at high latitudes due to longer nights. We are currently at our peak in this cycle, and as a local Fairbanks resident, I usually see these once every other week during the winter (or more if I use the geophysical info from UAF to plan sightings) . Greenish blue is the most common color, the source being nitrogen and oxygen ions in our atmosphere. Reds are more rare but often visible.
Wow. The northern lights are just awesome! I live in Michigan, like lower Michigan. And we've seen them here in the past year, but, I always miss them. It must be awesome to go up to Alaska where they're almost always around.
I wonder why he decided to go see the aurora borealis when he can see the aurora australis from australia
7 ปีที่แล้ว +8
macgibbon You can't see the Aurora Australis from Australia. "Australis" just means "Southern". He'd have to go a little farther, because auroras only occur in the Arctic/Antarctic Circles.
For some small balloon users it already is, like the National Weather Service. They fly two weather balloons a day out of each station, so they save a lot of helium by using hydrogen instead. I haven't used it myself but from what I've seen the risk is overblown. If you're willing to handle gasoline, then hydrogen should be less dangerous as long as you work outside and are careful.
Something I've been wondering for a while, Derek is from Australia--born, raised, and schooled--but he sounds American/Canadian. I'm just curious why that is.
Omg I love this. I've always wanted to do this. I love Ben Logmier, I'm totally saving up to make one of these, but to do it over the auroras is so magical. This is my dream, I hope oneday I can do it too. Thank you so much for posting this.
Seriously...who the hell would dislike this?! I mean...you know what you're getting when you click. The title says it all, and the footage pays in dividends. What the hell?!
I would love to see this done with one of those virtual reality 360 cameras.. the entire video you could look around as you slowly climb to 100,000 feet.. then imagine the fall!
How funny that you went from Australia to Alaska for this. Isn't anybody doing this in New Zealand to view the Aurora Australis? In any event, thanks for a unique view. It's been my goal since a small child to view this wonder in person.
No to all questions. The earth's magnetic field is a function of the dynamics in the outer (liquid) core of the earth; it is not significantly affected by the sun. There is no mechanism to reverse the rotation of the earth (or any part of it) and very good reason to think that's impossible; look up "conservation of angular momentum" to see why.
*DOES ANYONE KNOW ABOUT SOUNDS FROM AN AURORA GENERATED NEAR GROUND LEVEL?* Neighbor said he and sister heard "snaps and crackles" generated near ground level! I find this more interesting than the aurora!
+556x45mm NATO Thank you. Are we exposing ourselves to anything deleterious by being outside when such snaps and crackels are heard? What is the mechanism for producing the sounds? Static electricity discharges? Fascinating!
Robert Gift I'll try and explain this as well as I can without getting too intensive. Protons and Neutrons are composed of "quarks" and the two different kinds of quarks are "up" and "down" quarks. Up quarks have a charge of positive 2/3 and down quarks have a charge of negative 1/3. Neutrons are composed of two down and one up quarks, equaling out to a neutral (0) charge. Protons are composed of two up and one down quark, equaling out to a charge of positive 1. When a neutron exists outside of an atom, it has a half-life of approximately 10 minutes. When it decays, a down quark converts to an up quark, producing a proton (hydrogen ion), an electron, a neutrino and about 1,000,000 electron volts of energy. So there is a chance of absorbing free electrons which would be a form of ionizing radiation. I've also read about gamma exposure up north but I'm not sure how accurate those claims were.
We saw the aurora in Chena Alaska last January and we never heard any sounds it made. But the lights were magical! We saw it two nights in a row, the second night's lights were the most beautiful as pink and purple colors were present in addition to the green.
I know your comments is quite old, but I'll still reply to it. I've seen northern lights many times, when travelling in Norway. My mother (who is a nature photographer) made this multimedia-show of the aurora, including mostly still pictures, but also some time lapses ... and attempts to recreate the movement realistically (which was quite difficult as you can't just film the lights, you need long exposures) /watch?v=QEQICTVRqfU There is nearly nothing as amazing as these lights!
Quick googling suggests that air density at about 10km up would be equal to the density of helium at ground level. A rigid balloon wouldn't get that high though because of the weight of the balloon itself.
planes also made ocean liners obsolete, but cruise ships seam to be pretty popular anyway. my point is that, while Zeppelins are hopeless for point-to-point transport, they DO have potential for the tourist market. imagine slowly, & silently sailing over the grand canyon in a zeppelin with huge unobstructed windows versus a loud fast moving plane with small windows or a deafening loud helicopter?
You must not ever have played on a sunny, but snowy winter day outside. As long as you are not rolling in the snow you should be able to enjoy the clear crisp day in regular cloths. keep in mind there is not wind, too.
1. and 2. They are brighter and move faster when the sun is more active. I live in Lapland, Finland and I have seen only few times really bright (as bright as they are in some photographs). They enhance the lights in photographs a lot. But usually they are still very good looking even if just a bit dimmer. Just need to have clear skies to see them. 3. As Derek said, they are normally green/yellow but sometimes there is red/purple in the mixture.
For someone living in the tropics with virtually no chance of seeing the auroras myself, could someone who has actually seen them enlighten me about some things: 1. How frequent/bright are they? 2. How fast do they move? I have only seen time-lapse or still photographs. 3. Do they change in color? If so, how often? I have tried searching for the answers online, but most results I have found are unsatisfactory.
thanks! it's good to see that people are finally overcoming the lingering prejudices from the Hindenburg disaster. to tell the truth, i don't see why we can't make safe airships with Hydrogen as the lifting gas. heck the Graf Zeppelin flew over a million miles during its accident free service life. i would hope we can do better than a 1927 design with our vastly improved technology. imagine how awesome a zeppelin would be for sightseeing!
100th video coming up. Anything special? By the way, thanks for the upload. It makes me so happy to see a bunch of scientists and students working on such projects.
This video could use an added description of EXACTLY what the final balloon footage you're looking at is... It appears to be all aurora, but it COULD be that you're looking at a general aurora shot to the left of the images that's being overlayed on the "shield" light pattern that's on the right.
+Robert Gift I don't know for sure, I know they are more famous but they might have better colors due to the fact that North is the primary magnetic direction, so the field goes around the earth from north to south making it stronger and more colorful there.
I like how Derek talks to an american and makes him to convert feet to meters, the same seens in chat with Destin in video about Venus transit. And then he just writes an altitude in feet in the video title! Or is it intentionally just according to altitudes in aviation?
Unless you think you're breathing SPACE now then yes, you can understand that there is an "edge" around the earth where it connects to the atmosphere. Probably not a very scientific term but it's easy to understand what he means.
It's pretty standard for students to get a PhD around Derek's age. I think in the UK if you were to go Bachelor's degree --> PhD right away, you'd have your PhD by 25/26.
I'm going to assume that it's because the Aurora Borealis doesn't last very long relative to how long it would take for the moon to change its cycle and it ended up being that the Aurora Borealis happened during a near full moon?
hey, without wanting to take any props from derek and his crew, there is another balloon flight made by one guy and his son, where you can observe the shaking after the balloon pops: /watch?v=y6ZMscMp8UM , just wanted to let you know of course it hasn't anything to do with northern lights :) ..but it's pretty cool too, imo
Hydrogen for small unmanned balloons shouldn't be a problem with some basic safety precautions. I wouldn't reject hydrogen for larger airships completely out of hand, but I'd want to be very careful before I put people on one. There still isn't unanimous agreement on the cause of the Hindenberg disaster, though I think there's a leading theory that looks reasonable.
+Binoy Vudi He was born in australia, moved to canada then back to australia so he has a canadian accent but is australian so he uses the metric system
I'm interested to know how far away from our planet the lights are still visible from. i think it would be spectacular to see them from directlyabove the north pole high in space (like further from that space station) so that you could see everything at once.
Does the balloon expand at high altitude because the downward pressure of the atmosphere decreases so there is no longer an equilibrium with the balloon, allowing the outward pressure from the helium to cause the latex expand?
If the end of the world happens by global light show, that's going to be a beautiful apocalypse.
What do you mean IF?
Wouldn't be the end of the world, just the destruction of all modern technology. Millions would likely die, sure, but the end of the world won't be a light show. It'd be from a direct hit from a solar flare and we'd never see it coming, literally.
Which I suppose could be briefly portended by a massive aurora moments before we all fry.
1. They can be faint, such that you need a camera with a long exposure to really see them - but other times they fill the sky and are nearly as bright as the moon. 2. They sometimes move very slowly and other times are quite quick. I almost filmed some in real time because I was curious about this - I did some 2 second exposure time lapses so these are more similar to real time. Check out my other vid on this topic to see them.
I think it was to help with recovery - some of which went until 4am, and I think our team members were very thankful for the full moon at that point!
yes
Don't build it up too much! I'm on the road and much too busy to do something ridiculously awesome.
Yet I live in NYC and cant even see the stars at night Lmao
tell everyone to turn the damn lights off.
Pretty Much 😂!
Ben Rich true from space New York looks like Christmas
Raghav Inder Ever heard of light pollution??
That sucks. I live in Hawaii and I see more stars than I know what to do with.. lol
Wonderful. I remember seeing the aurora borealis when we lived in northern North Dakota from 1962 to 1964. From the green and yellow curtains on the northern horizon to drifting, shifting clouds of pink all the way to the southern horizon. I'm glad you're looking into the phenomenon with both a scientist's point of view and as someone who appreciates the majesty of the spectacle.
we were outside - it warmed up towards the end of our stay, especially during the day
Holy - only two likes!
And 11 years later, just on time, I got to witness this spectacular show from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK.
Lol I’m in Wasilla/Big Lake right now in Alaska. I’m a born and raised Alaskan and can I just say the Northern Lights never gets old 🥰
3. They didn't so much change colour - green/yellow was very common, and sometimes you could see red/purple tips higher up.
Auroral activity varies on an approximate 11 year cycle. They are most visible in the winter at high latitudes due to longer nights. We are currently at our peak in this cycle, and as a local Fairbanks resident, I usually see these once every other week during the winter (or more if I use the geophysical info from UAF to plan sightings) . Greenish blue is the most common color, the source being nitrogen and oxygen ions in our atmosphere. Reds are more rare but often visible.
Wow. The northern lights are just awesome! I live in Michigan, like lower Michigan. And we've seen them here in the past year, but, I always miss them. It must be awesome to go up to Alaska where they're almost always around.
I wonder why he decided to go see the aurora borealis when he can see the aurora australis from australia
macgibbon You can't see the Aurora Australis from Australia. "Australis" just means "Southern". He'd have to go a little farther, because auroras only occur in the Arctic/Antarctic Circles.
For some small balloon users it already is, like the National Weather Service. They fly two weather balloons a day out of each station, so they save a lot of helium by using hydrogen instead.
I haven't used it myself but from what I've seen the risk is overblown. If you're willing to handle gasoline, then hydrogen should be less dangerous as long as you work outside and are careful.
Something I've been wondering for a while, Derek is from Australia--born, raised, and schooled--but he sounds American/Canadian. I'm just curious why that is.
anyway, he speaks French
Born in Australia, raised in Canada and then moved back to Australia, according to his bio on Wikipedia :)
Maria Covăsneanu Ooooh, that explains it then :D Thanks!
Yeah, this is not my editing but I appreciate your feedback...
Omg I love this. I've always wanted to do this. I love Ben Logmier, I'm totally saving up to make one of these, but to do it over the auroras is so magical. This is my dream, I hope oneday I can do it too. Thank you so much for posting this.
The fact that earth has this invisible force field that is meant to shield and protect us is just another marvel of nature.
It's not to protect us
Every planet has a magnetic field, it's literally a fundamental property of things
@@cardboard_hat but it still blocks out harmful rays, and comets from hitting us. So it is to protect us.
Seriously...who the hell would dislike this?!
I mean...you know what you're getting when you click. The title says it all, and the footage pays in dividends. What the hell?!
Can we all agree that GoPros are amazing.
I would love to see this done with one of those virtual reality 360 cameras.. the entire video you could look around as you slowly climb to 100,000 feet.. then imagine the fall!
All balloon launches are reported to aviation authorities beforehand so air traffic is aware and conflicts can be avoided.
How funny that you went from Australia to Alaska for this. Isn't anybody doing this in New Zealand to view the Aurora Australis? In any event, thanks for a unique view. It's been my goal since a small child to view this wonder in person.
this was very well produced, and such an interesting project! wish I had the opportunity to do stuff like this when i was in school
just shake your heady vigorously as you watch the video, it's a similar effect. I'll see if I can put it on 2veritasium, so look out for it there.
I did this and I'm dizzy and confused
That video was so awesome. It's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for sharing.
You have a great narrator tone/voice. You should be hired by the discovery channel or something.
Can't wait for the 100th video! It is going to be epic!!!
Touch it, lick it, smell it
You what?
+Brad Hawkins I know right! I love it when scientist talk dirty hahah
Brad Hawkins 😂😂😂😂
Everything you do is ridiculously awesome!!
we need to try this again with modern gear and a 4k gopro !
I refuse to believe that Principal Skinner's kitchen is that big.
No to all questions. The earth's magnetic field is a function of the dynamics in the outer (liquid) core of the earth; it is not significantly affected by the sun. There is no mechanism to reverse the rotation of the earth (or any part of it) and very good reason to think that's impossible; look up "conservation of angular momentum" to see why.
Dude you should do some documentaries! It was a joy to watch!
*DOES ANYONE KNOW ABOUT SOUNDS FROM AN AURORA GENERATED NEAR GROUND LEVEL?*
Neighbor said he and sister heard "snaps and crackles" generated near ground level! I find this more interesting than the aurora!
+Robert Gift That phenomenon is known as neutron decay. Thunderf00t demonstrated this inside of a nuclear reactor.
+556x45mm NATO Thank you. Are we exposing ourselves to anything deleterious by being outside when such snaps and crackels are heard? What is the mechanism for producing the sounds? Static electricity discharges? Fascinating!
Robert Gift I'll try and explain this as well as I can without getting too intensive. Protons and Neutrons are composed of "quarks" and the two different kinds of quarks are "up" and "down" quarks. Up quarks have a charge of positive 2/3 and down quarks have a charge of negative 1/3. Neutrons are composed of two down and one up quarks, equaling out to a neutral (0) charge. Protons are composed of two up and one down quark, equaling out to a charge of positive 1. When a neutron exists outside of an atom, it has a half-life of approximately 10 minutes. When it decays, a down quark converts to an up quark, producing a proton (hydrogen ion), an electron, a neutrino and about 1,000,000 electron volts of energy. So there is a chance of absorbing free electrons which would be a form of ionizing radiation. I've also read about gamma exposure up north but I'm not sure how accurate those claims were.
+556x45mm NATO Interesting. Thank you. I do not understand what the material arriving from the sun is nor why any sub atomic involvement.
We saw the aurora in Chena Alaska last January and we never heard any sounds it made. But the lights were magical! We saw it two nights in a row, the second night's lights were the most beautiful as pink and purple colors were present in addition to the green.
Wow! Awesome vid. Keep it up! Been watching since gyroscopic procession. Destin sent me :)
I know your comments is quite old, but I'll still reply to it. I've seen northern lights many times, when travelling in Norway. My mother (who is a nature photographer) made this multimedia-show of the aurora, including mostly still pictures, but also some time lapses ... and attempts to recreate the movement realistically (which was quite difficult as you can't just film the lights, you need long exposures)
/watch?v=QEQICTVRqfU
There is nearly nothing as amazing as these lights!
Quick googling suggests that air density at about 10km up would be equal to the density of helium at ground level. A rigid balloon wouldn't get that high though because of the weight of the balloon itself.
I personally thought the music was perfectly matched with the rest of the video, and provided a nice atmosphere for it.
planes also made ocean liners obsolete, but cruise ships seam to be pretty popular anyway. my point is that, while Zeppelins are hopeless for point-to-point transport, they DO have potential for the tourist market. imagine slowly, & silently sailing over the grand canyon in a zeppelin with huge unobstructed windows versus a loud fast moving plane with small windows or a deafening loud helicopter?
This video is awesome
thank you for uploading, you make me love physics even more.
You must not ever have played on a sunny, but snowy winter day outside. As long as you are not rolling in the snow you should be able to enjoy the clear crisp day in regular cloths. keep in mind there is not wind, too.
1. and 2. They are brighter and move faster when the sun is more active. I live in Lapland, Finland and I have seen only few times really bright (as bright as they are in some photographs). They enhance the lights in photographs a lot. But usually they are still very good looking even if just a bit dimmer. Just need to have clear skies to see them. 3. As Derek said, they are normally green/yellow but sometimes there is red/purple in the mixture.
Fantastic work! Thanks for share with us this wonder of nature en our planet !
Amazing! And some crazy camera angels :D
You should have traveled to south pole where it is closer to Australia. :P
i think it's mostly because the actual atmosphere thins out thus leaving less pressure from all sides on the balloon and so it expands
I actually like the music, great video great music!
I believe the Aurora only really affects electronics when it becomes very strong, or when you are very close to it.
For someone living in the tropics with virtually no chance of seeing the auroras myself, could someone who has actually seen them enlighten me about some things: 1. How frequent/bright are they? 2. How fast do they move? I have only seen time-lapse or still photographs. 3. Do they change in color? If so, how often?
I have tried searching for the answers online, but most results I have found are unsatisfactory.
thanks for uploading this
thanks! it's good to see that people are finally overcoming the lingering prejudices from the Hindenburg disaster. to tell the truth, i don't see why we can't make safe airships with Hydrogen as the lifting gas. heck the Graf Zeppelin flew over a million miles during its accident free service life. i would hope we can do better than a 1927 design with our vastly improved technology. imagine how awesome a zeppelin would be for sightseeing!
100th video coming up. Anything special?
By the way, thanks for the upload. It makes me so happy to see a bunch of scientists and students working on such projects.
This is on my bucket list great idea!
This video could use an added description of EXACTLY what the final balloon footage you're looking at is...
It appears to be all aurora, but it COULD be that you're looking at a general aurora shot to the left of the images that's being overlayed on the "shield" light pattern that's on the right.
as far as i know there is light on the south too its called aurora australias. it would be nearer to you isn't it?
Hedgy there are but they are less significant.
+Kevin O'Neil Why are they less significant? If northern hemisphere's summer when the northern hemiphere is tiltled toward the solar wind?
+Robert Gift I don't know for sure, I know they are more famous but they might have better colors due to the fact that North is the primary magnetic direction, so the field goes around the earth from north to south making it stronger and more colorful there.
+Kevin O'Neil Thank you, Kevin. I'd expect the magnetic poles to be equal in strength.
+Robert Gift They might be, i'm not really sure.
YOU! I Had to leave work 20 mins ago and im still on youtube watching ur videos :( i can't leave they're so much intresting
it does, it's called aurora australis, meaning southern lights
I like how Derek talks to an american and makes him to convert feet to meters, the same seens in chat with Destin in video about Venus transit.
And then he just writes an altitude in feet in the video title! Or is it intentionally just according to altitudes in aviation?
You must've felt cold interviewing with just the shirts :P
probably, because plasma is some free electrons flying around, so do aurora. however I'm not sure but my guess would be yes they are :)
Nice aurora behind camera :D
In the movie THE LANGOLIERS the plane went through the aurora borealis. It went back in time ..So be careful.
I am confused
This made me BELIEVE.
why can you see the camera in the night footage?
The balloon had headlights so that it could daze santa's deers
the sun and earth were here before planes and satellites let it happen
I would let it happen if people weren't going to die. We are now dependant on electricity.
Unless you think you're breathing SPACE now then yes, you can understand that there is an "edge" around the earth where it connects to the atmosphere. Probably not a very scientific term but it's easy to understand what he means.
that was a pretty epic video
It's pretty standard for students to get a PhD around Derek's age. I think in the UK if you were to go Bachelor's degree --> PhD right away, you'd have your PhD by 25/26.
I'm going to assume that it's because the Aurora Borealis doesn't last very long relative to how long it would take for the moon to change its cycle and it ended up being that the Aurora Borealis happened during a near full moon?
Why didn't they use a higher quality camera? It looks gorgeous up there!
really good video. but the explanation of the Aurora lights was very brief could you please go into more detail?
hey, without wanting to take any props from derek and his crew, there is another balloon flight made by one guy and his son, where you can observe the shaking after the balloon pops: /watch?v=y6ZMscMp8UM , just wanted to let you know
of course it hasn't anything to do with northern lights :) ..but it's pretty cool too, imo
Hydrogen for small unmanned balloons shouldn't be a problem with some basic safety precautions.
I wouldn't reject hydrogen for larger airships completely out of hand, but I'd want to be very careful before I put people on one. There still isn't unanimous agreement on the cause of the Hindenberg disaster, though I think there's a leading theory that looks reasonable.
Did the experiment tell us how nocturnal emissions affect our lives?
this is really awesome
Science needs more funding.
Awesome video
Very rarely did I ever hear "Kilometers" being said with an American (US) Accent.
+Binoy Vudi He was born in australia, moved to canada then back to australia so he has a canadian accent but is australian so he uses the metric system
+*I just comment the title of the video (replies don't count)* Canada also uses the metric system
Yeah u know, americans need to be unique
I think it was an emphasis on the work they put into it ;)
Old school Veratasium 😍
GOPRO HD DID A VIDEO ON THIS!! It's the same people and same occasion!!!
music is ok since it's nice and fitting in
Wow, nice video!
Are you still in Alaska? Come to Anchorage and do some interview video on misconceptions.
why was the camera set up to view directly into a gopro! it really ruins the pictures. amazing view never the less.
I'm interested to know how far away from our planet the lights are still visible from. i think it would be spectacular to see them from directlyabove the north pole high in space (like further from that space station) so that you could see everything at once.
Very awesome!
We are doing a nice advertising for GoPro here!
Oxygen and/or Ozone gives off green spectral lines when excited by the incoming solar radiation.
Does the balloon expand at high altitude because the downward pressure of the atmosphere decreases so there is no longer an equilibrium with the balloon, allowing the outward pressure from the helium to cause the latex expand?
When the density of the air becomes equal to the average overall density of the balloon and payload.
You missed out that it is highly likely we are entering a new solar minimum so solar flares will be of reduced magnitude for a fair while yet.
Aurora is a amazing night glow
A question just came to my mind. If we had a helium baloon which could not expand nor compress, when would it stop going up? Thanks :)
I wonder if you could also attach a lobster with a Superman cape with it's own parachute, you know, just because?
People are lucky who lives in the Arctic circle to see this 😭😭
To them it probably isn't that special, since they see it as often as they see the moon.
It would make you motion sick. Seriously.
It's because the video is a part of Catalyst... or at least that's what I would assume.