Fairbanks: Museum of the North (03-10-2023)

 We leave Chena Hot Springs by 8:00am.  Fairbanks here we come!  It is cold with snow showers.  We arrive in Fairbanks around 9:30 and head for the  Museum of the North  located on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

We arrive a few minutes before the Museum opens at 10:00.  We use the time to drive around the UAF campus.

An aurora forecast site I often check is generated by the Geophysical Institute at UAF.  I got  kick out of seeing the building.  

Another thrill we encounter while driving around campus is this sign with information about the planet Uranus.  I, and the rest of my family, have a sophisticated sense of humor.  We think Uranus (pronounced: your-AN-us) is hysterical.  We stop to take a selfie.

 

(One Friday night at the UAA planetarium we asked an astronomy professor the correct way to pronounce the planet's name.  Is it your-AN-us or YOUR-an-us.  He said educators tended to say YOUR-an-us because it is less giggly).

It is 10:00 now so we go to the Museum.  We watch the 11:00 showing of the movie Dynamic Aurora in the Museum's theater.  The movie explains the science behind the aurora and contains Alaskan Native cultural perspectives/beliefs regarding the aurora.  BB and I have attended programs at the UAA planetarium on the aurora borealis.  We have a good understanding of the science behind the aurora borealis is generated.  The Geophysical Institute describes it like this:

The aurora is a luminous glow seen around the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. The light is caused by collisions between electrically charged particles streaming out from the sun in the solar wind that enter Earth’s atmosphere and collide with molecules and atoms of gas, primarily oxygen and nitrogen.

When the electrons and protons from the sun collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere, they gain energy. To get back to their normal state, they release that energy in the form of light. The principle is similar to what happens in a neon light. Electricity runs through the light fixture to excite the neon gas inside, and when the neon is excited, it gives off a brilliant light.

The dancing lights of the aurora are seen around the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres because the electrons from the sun travel along magnetic field lines in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The magnetosphere is a vast, comet-shaped bubble around our planet. As the electrons from the solar wind penetrate into the upper atmosphere, the chance of colliding with an atom or molecule increases the deeper into the atmosphere they go.

The composition and density of the atmosphere and the altitude of the collisions determine the colors. The aurora is most often seen as a striking green, but it also occasionally shows off other colors, ranging from red to pink or blue to purple. Oxygen at about 60 miles up gives off the familiar green-yellow color, oxygen at higher altitudes (about 200 miles above Earth’s surface) gives all-red auroras. Nitrogen in different forms produces the blue and red-purple light.

The Museum's Gallery of Alaska consists of  five regional galleries representing the major ecological regions of Alaska.  Each gallery highlights the distinct natural and cultural history of these regions.  The five regions are Southwest, Southcentral, Southeast, Interior and Western and Arctic Coast.

 Otto the Bear stands at the Gallery of Alaska entrance.

This is Blue Babe,  a 36,000 year-old mummified Alaska steppe bison.

The Place Where You Go To Listen  is an exhibit in a sound proof room on the Museum's second floor.  The description sounds interesting: 

The Place Where You Go to Listen is a unique sound and light environment created by Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. This constantly changing, never repeating ecosystem of sound and light, tuned to the geophysical forces of Interior Alaska. The composition is guided by the seasons, the time of day, changes in the phases of the moon, and moment to moment fluctuations in atmospheric haze, wind, aurora activity, and Alaska's earthquakes.

Jack tells us he met the composer during one of his adventures in Alaska.  (I think they met at a bush pilot's house; sleeping on the floor and waiting for the weather to clear).  I check out the exhibit.  I try to appreciate it; however am not successful.  

The Museum Lobby.

We have a mid-afternoon flight back to Anchorage.  We drop off the rental car, check in at the Fairbanks airport and have an uneventful ride home.