 |
| Aurora in New Jersey, May 11, 2024 |
The word "Aurora" comes from Latin. In Roman mythology and Latin poetry it is the name of the goddess of dawn. It was first used by Gallileo in the context of the atmospheric phenomemon. The word pairs “Aurora Borealis”, or “Northern Lights”, conjures up imagery of colorful, curled flows of light tucked away in the high northern latitudes, somewhere in the Nordics or Iceland. Rarely does this phenomenon descend from the earth's poles to the lower latitudes. In the contiental United States, that means it does not extend beyond northern states like Minnesota or Alaska. Viewing the Northern lights has been on the bucket list of low latitiude dwellers like myself.
Spring of 2024, May 11th was one of those very rare occassions when the "goddess of dawn" visited us right here in my New Jersey backyard at the lowly 40 degrees north latitude.
