a decade of Northern Lights

Ten years ago, in Bergen (Norway), I embarked on a journey that would shape my life. The Erasmus program was a definitive leap into adulthood, autonomy, and—above all—community. It also marked, for better or worse, the beginning of my academic path. Thanks to a program at the University of Bergen, I had the opportunity to take a field course in the Baltic States, where I was introduced to and practiced qualitative research methods in social geography. A decade later, I find myself working with the same theoretical coordinates that guided that journey, but at a more southerly latitude—back in Santiago.

Life in Norway awakened in me interests I had barely explored, such as mountaineering and Nordic walking, and even others I had never imagined, like the “hunting” of the northern lights. This phenomenon (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial) is the result of a massive storm of solar-origin particles. When electrons collide with our atmosphere, they create vibrant green, purple, or red patches that illuminate the northern skies. The prospect of experiencing an Erasmus stay at such high latitudes promised countless nights under dazzling auroral displays—yet, in the end, they remained elusive. Not only were we in a quiet phase of the solar cycle, but persistent cloud cover consistently obscured the celestial dances I had hoped to witness. Still, on one unforgettable night, I finally had the chance to see them in all their glory.

Back in Galicia, I maintained the habit of checking aurora forecasts. Because of that, on the evening of November 5, 2019, I became the lone enthusiast predicting a possible sighting in northern Iberia—one that, in the end, never materialized. Nearly ten years later, after countless false alarms, the northern lights have finally returned to these latitudes, thanks to the heightened solar activity at the peak of the current cycle. After missing an aurora display in the spring of 2024, on October 11, 2024, following a solar explosion in region AR3364, I documented an impressive pink aurora at 1:30 AM, visible to the naked eye. From the Velux window of our room, I watched in awe alongside my partner. Who would have thought, on that distant Norwegian night, that ten years later, I would be witnessing the northern lights dance over the skies of Compostela, this time with a child in my arms?