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If you are touring in Lapland, you no longer need to shiver
outside when watching towards the heavens in order to see
the Northern Lights. Information about the Northern Lights
can now be received directly on a mobile phone. The world's
first Aurora Borealis Alarm System was launched in Rovaniemi
in January 2004.
"This is a service in which local beliefs, the natural
surroundings and technology are combined in an interesting
way. Asian tourists in particular are interested in the system,"
says Miikka Raulo, the managing director of the Lapland Centre
of Expertise for the Experience Industry.
In practice the service operates fairly simply. A tourist
can order the service on the Internet in his own country.
Having come to Finland, he hires a telephone for the service
at the airport. At the hotel the tourist receives information
about seeing the Northern Lights in the form of a text message
on his telephone. The information is transmitted by a sensor
monitoring the sky.
Raulo says that the best time to see the Northern Lights
in the Rovaniemi area is between November and March - on average
every other day. The service costs 9 euros a day or 22 euros
a week.
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The Northern Lights - what are they?
The Northern Lights are a phenomenon that is seen in
the skies on clear, dark nights in the Arctic and Antarctic
regions. Scientists say that they are normally created
at a height of 100 kilometres, when electric particles
(electrons and protons) accelerated by the Earth's magnetic
field collide with molecules of air. These release some
of the energy that is obtained in the form of visible
light.
The most common greenish-yellow and the not-so-common
red lights originate from the oxygen in the atmosphere,
blue and violet come from the nitrogen. The particles
that create the Northern Lights originate from the Sun,
from where they are hurled into Space at a speed of
1,000 kilometres a second on the solar wind.
Different cultures hold many beliefs about the Northern
Lights. Lapps have believed that the Northern Lights
have a special quality to settle disagreements. Asians
believe they increase fertility, while the Japanese
believe that children conceived under the Northern Lights
are lucky.
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