Star Points for May, 2000; by Curtis Roelle Northern Lights: A rare treat for Marylanders. Last month one day I read a news report about a powerful solar flare which was expected to produce displays of the Aurora Borealis, or "northern lights", at latitudes as far south as Washington, DC. Upon starting out for a stroll that night I saw that the sky was clear. However, turning my head around Upon changing direction it became apparent that a full blown display was in progress. A faint whitish band could be seen against the clear night sky that stretched from a point above the southwest horizon up across the sky and down almost touching the southeast horizon. The eastern section of the disturbance had a faint ruddy red glow. In the north a pencil-like finger of whitish-green light extended straight up past the constellation Cassiopeia reaching almost to Polaris, the north polar star. During the course of my walk these glows shifted and faded. At one point a ghostly band of white that spanned the entire horizon began to slowly rise in the north and reached nearly halfway up the sky before fading. Although to a lay person it may have looked like an ordinary cloud it wasn't as stars were easily visible shining through it. By the time my one hour walk was over so was the auroral display. Although I grew up in a state where livestock outnumbered people I never saw an aurora until several months after moving to Carroll County in 1982. On that night the northern lights extended so far into the southerly sky that they were washing out the eyepiece field in which I was viewing globular star clusters in the constellation Sagittarius. When I was growing up my Father tried to show us nature in the night sky. There was the time we anxiously looked for the 1966 Leonid meteor storm on the night after it happened (see November 1998 Star Points). Then there was the time my Father had heard a news report about an impressively bright auroral display. He packed us up in the family car and this time actually drove out of town to a dark sky location along a gravel road. Nothing. Turned out the report was from the previous night. One may wonder how is it possible for someone to develop a preoccupation with astronomy after so many setbacks. Sometimes it seems that in my case it was the very accumulation of so many foiled expectations which facilitated an entrenched yearning to ultimately experience those sights beheld by others which kept eluding me. However, this is in no way intended to be an endorsement for this or similar techniques to be tried out on your own children. This month there are two opportunities recommended to help you or your family get acquainted with the science and hobby of astronomy. First is on Saturday, May 20 from 12-5 p.m. at the main branch of the Carroll County Public Library on Main Street in Westminster. The Westminster Astronomical Society (WAS) will be sponsoring a series of displays related to astronomy. If the weather permits the group will be conducting safe solar viewing of sunspots. Then on the following day Sunday, May 21 the WAS will be taking part, along with other area nature groups with festivities at the Bear Branch Nature Center near Lake Hashawha. Activities will include planetarium shows and more sun and sunspot viewing. These sunspots by the way are the source of aurora borealis. Each sunspot is the site of a solar storm from which flares may periodically erupt. The flares carry highly energetic atomic particles which are then driven earthward by the solar wind. Upon reaching earth these particles follow the "lines" of earth's magnetic field and end up interacting with the upper layers of our atmosphere. The atmosphere helps in two ways. First, through its interaction with the streaming solar material it provides us with entertaining displays of northern lights. Secondly, the atmosphere protects us from intense radiation associated with solar flares. Solar flares can pose a danger for astronauts especially if caught outside of their protective spacecraft. For this reason NASA and the U.S. military have satellites continuously watching the sun that provide early warning of impending danger from solar flares. Risks such as these have been addressed before in science fiction. For example in James Michener's best selling novel "Space" two astronauts on a fictional Apollo 18 lunar mission are miles away from their lander when they find themselves doused with radiation from the biggest solar flare in 200 years. After speeding back to the lander in their lunar rover the astronauts perform an emergency liftoff. However suffering from radiation sickness they end up crashing while a third astronaut watches through the 28x navigational telescope from the command ship orbiting the moon. Fortunately all 12 of the humans who have walked on the Moon returned safely to the earth. However, in recent years several have passed away: James Irwin, Apollo 15 lunar module pilot, died of a heart attack in 1991; Alan B. Shepard, Apollo 14 commander, died of leukemia in 1998; and Charles A. Conrad, Apollo 12 commander, died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in 1999.