An aurora, also called polar light or northern light, is a natural light display in the sky. They are usually seen in the high latitudes (Arctic and Antarctic) regions.
An aurora around the North Pole is called the Aurora borealis or ‘northern lights’. Around the South Pole it is the Aurora australis or ‘dawn of the south’. It can be seen from long distances, stretching in the sky many hundreds of miles.
Auroras can only be seen at night because their light is not as strong as the light of day and faint stars can even be seen through the aurora. However, they can also happen during the day.
An aurora occurs when the Sun sends off particles into space. These particles are mainly electrons, with charge and energy, which means they contribute to electricity. Earth has a protective shield of energy around it. This is called the “magnetic field.” The Earth’s magnetic field keeps off most of the solar wind.
At high-latitude areas (polar areas), the magnetic field is vertical. It does not keep off particles of the solar wind and hit the particles of the air (Earth’s atmosphere). When they hit, the atmosphere is heated and excited and the excess energy gets away, a phenomenon which we see as moving lights in the sky above 100 km altitude typically.
Auroral phenomena have been observed on other planets that have a magnetic field, such as Jupiter, Saturn and more recently Mars.
Many legends are associated with the aurora in all countries where this phenomenon regularly occurs.
Images
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Moon and Aurora
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The Aboriginal Australians associated auroras (which are mainly low on the horizon and predominantly red) with fire.
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Church’s 1865 painting Aurora Borealis
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ISS Expedition 6 team, Lake Manicouagan is visible to the bottom left
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Aurora during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on 24 May 2010. Taken from the International Space Station
