Colors in the dark from a burial ground

The view from the ground, the small things. Standing at a historical site, old burial ground from the Iron Age. The stoned ones moved by the people creating the burial ground. At the stones moss and lichens grow, some very colorful in UV light. 

What are lichens?

Lichens are miniature ecosystems made of fungus and an algae and/or cyanobacteria. These different life forms work so closely together that the algae or cyanobacteria actually sits inside the fungus. The algae or cyanobacteria provide the fungus with sugars made from sunlight, and the fungus provides the home. Lichens look like spots or clumps of colour, like someone has splashed paint onto a branch of a tree. Their colours range from green to brown to white to russet red. Even in these colours, lichens can be understated additions to tree trunks and rocks, and you might miss them at first glance. There are many types of lichen but they only grow in three ways. They can be branched like tiny shrubs, they can have crinkly little leaves or they can grow like a crust on a surface.

Mosses are small, non-vascular, flowerless plants that form dense green clumps or mats, usually in damp places, lacking true roots, stems, and leaves but having root-like rhizoids and simple leaf-like structures. They absorb water and nutrients directly through their surfaces, reproduce via spores, and are vital for soil stabilization, water retention, and creating microhabitats, acting as an important link in ecosystems.

In the sky a faint green light visible below the Big Dipper. According to Spaceweather.com it is SOLSTICE STORM IN PROGRESS: A minor G1-class geomagnetic storm is in progress on Dec. 21st. Why? Earth's magnetic field is connecting to the sun's (SWx jargon: "BsubZ is pointing south"), giving the solar wind an unimpeded path into our magnetosphere. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras.