Gorgeous Norwegian Auroras (pics)

Coinciding with the annual Geminids, a solar flare made its way to Earth, providing some beautiful light shows/auroras/Northern Lights. I will likely be in Alaska some day (or Iceland, or Norway), to see Northern Lights with my own eyes. That's a travel goal.

Is this the real life?

I saw some crazy streaking meteors the other night. Every December, when it gets cold, solsticey, and holiday music starts playing, it's time for Geminids. The Geminid meteor shower is named after the constellation Gemini, which is where the "radiant point" of the shower is. Most of the shooting stars will come from there. Cool thing is that Jupiter was IN Gemini the other night, so you can just stare at Jupiter in awe while catching meteors in your peripheral. I just laid out on my car, with a jacket and some music. Beautiful show. If you missed it, there's always next year.

Is this just fantasy?

So yeah, in studying History and religions, I'm big on celestial phenomena. What does it all mean? Does it mean anything? Can we attach meaning to it if we want? Yeah, that along with climatic, political, and economic destabilization.... but we survived 2012. We should be okay. At least we don't got giant mutated rats, like the Middle East... or killer hornets, like Japan.

Full moon coming up Dec. 17. Longest full moon of the year, they call it the Full Cold Moon, or the Long Night Moon, cuz it's closest to the Winter Solstice.

By the way, aliens are real.

Photo credit and more photos here: http://www.nrk.no/nordland/...