Beautiful images of the aurora are a staple on all science and photography pages. Theyre just gorgeous, arent they? But what actually *is* the aurora borealis? Where do these lights come from? Theyve been spotted throughout human history, but were officially named in 1621 by French scientist Pierre Gassendi. He named them after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora and the Roman god of the north wind, Boreas. In the southern hemisphere, theyre known as aurora australis (meaning southern). Although the look very calm and serene, theyre actually the result of millions of explosions of magnetic energy. Millions and millions of electrically charged particles are emitted from the sun and hit the Earths magnetosphere. Without the magnetosphere, these solar winds would make the planet uninhabitable (even if we could breathe without an atmosphere, that is). So, these particles are emitted by the sun and smash into our atmospheric gases. The energy from each of these tiny collisions is released as photons, which makes the particles glow. The aurora is typically seen at the poles because the Earths magnetic fields syphon them around the planet.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 22:12:30 +0000
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