How a biologist and a composer are making music from the northern lights

While you may be familiar with the natural phenomenon known as the northern lights (aurora borealis), did you know there’s an audio element to this brilliant light show? When humans see those sweeping green and violet lights over the Arctic sky, what we’re actually seeing are collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. These collisions emit electromagnetic waves, and they can be translated into sounds that humans can hear via a small machine. Recently, a small documentary called Songs of the Sky was produced that followed biologist Karin Lehmkuhl Bodony as she ventures out into the Alaskan wilderness on her dog sleigh to record the sounds. 

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