Two months to the day until the Hudson Bay Quest in Churchill. Here’s some photos to get excited for the race in two months. Keep posted for updates and coverage in March!
Northern sled dog in Churchill. Brad Josephs photo.
Hudson Bay Quest musher off at the start.
Sled dogs in training for the Hudson Bay Quest. Brad Josephs photo.
Ever wonder what the perfect conditions are for seeing the magnificent northern lights ? When and where are the best places to see them? Why are various northern lights different colors? Well, you can get all the answers from an expert today right here! Click this Explore.org webcam link to ask “Starman” a question!
Get all your burning northern lights questions answered today live at 5pm eastern time on Explore.org Northern Lights Cam. Canadian aurora borealis lecturer Roger “Starman” Woloshyn will be answering comment questions live on air today through the webcam portal. Just click on the webcam link and submit a question in the comment section and Roger will answer them as they come in.
Roger is an active lecturer at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre in Churchill, Manitoba. The center, founded in 1976, is a non-profit education and research facility 15 miles east of town at the site of the dormant Churchill Rocket Range. Researchers and educators utilize the facility to explore a diverse range of issues on northern science. Woloshyn also produces and writes presentations for the Manitoba Planetarium in Winnipeg, a position he has held for the past 20 years.
So, get your questions ready and come chat with “Starman” today at Explore.org!
Nunavut’s capital Iqaluit experienced a mysterious reddish glow this past Tuesday that many residents had never seen. The phenomena was not a martian scan of Earth’s northern Arctic region in an effort to research our current global warming trend. However, as with other lighting occurrences in the far north, light reacting with dust and ice particles in the atmosphere causes some pretty unique effects. This one was pretty cool.
The photo with the red glow on the right was taken mid – afternoon on Tuesday and the image on the left was taken about the same time the following day, Wednesday. Nick Murray/CBC photo.
CBC North meteorologist Ashley Brauweiler described the glow as a result of sunlight scattering and intensifying because of the time of day the photo was taken. These photos were taken at sunset when the sun is lower in the sky.”When the sun is at a low angle in the sky, the light has a longer distance to travel,” said Brauweiler. “The blue [coloration, which leads to a more common ‘blue sky’] gets removed by the ice crystals and salt in the air, which leaves red visible.”
“The clouds are much larger than light waves, which allows them to take on the color, in this case pink.”
The phenomena is a fairly rare sight…but a amazing one for sure!
