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What does the Sun have to do with aurora?
An aurora is a colorful light show in the sky caused by the Sun. Auroras happen when particles from the Sun interact with gases in our atmosphere, causing beautiful displays of light in the sky. Auroras are often seen in areas near the North Pole or South Pole.
How does the Sun affect the northern lights?
The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere. Blown towards the earth by the solar wind, the charged particles are largely deflected by the earth’s magnetic field.
What affects the aurora?
The “northern lights” are caused by collisions between fast-moving particles (electrons) from space and the oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere. Oxygen emits either a greenish-yellow light (the most familiar color of the aurora) or a red light; nitrogen generally gives off a blue light.
What causes the aurora?
The lights we see in the night sky are in actual fact caused by activity on the surface of the Sun. Solar storms on our star’s surface give out huge clouds of electrically charged particles. The aurora’s characteristic wavy patterns and ‘curtains’ of light are caused by the lines of force in the Earth’s magnetic field.
Why is the aurora important?
NASA studies aurora as they are visible markers of space weather processes around Earth. When the solar wind reaches Earth’s magnetic field, it can cause magnetic reconnection, an explosive process that allows charged particles from space to accelerate into the atmosphere.
Why is aurora Borealis Green?
The most common color seen in the Northern Lights is green. When the solar wind hits millions of oxygen atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere at the same time, it excites the oxygen atoms for a time and they decay back to their original state, when they emit the green hue we can see from the ground.
How often does aurora Borealis happen?
“Active periods are typically about 30 minutes long, and occur every two hours, if the activity is high. The aurora is a sporadic phenomenon, occurring randomly for short periods or perhaps not at all.”
Why is the Aurora Green?
Most solar particles typically collide with our atmosphere at an altitude of around 60 to 150 miles where there are high concentrations of oxygen. When the Oxygen is “excited” at these altitudes it causes the Aurora to appear in shades of green.
What causes red auroras?
Above: rare high-altitude red aurora, caused by a violent solar outburst near solar maximum. Every gas shines with its own special colors of light. Very high in the ionosphere (above 300 km or 180 miles), oxygen is the most common atom, and collisions there can create a rare red aurora.
What causes green aurora?
Do all planets have auroras?
Do other planets have auroras? Any planet with a sufficiently dense atmosphere that lies in the path of the solar wind will have auroras. Auroras have been photographed on Jupiter, Saturn, and even on some planets’ moons. Our moon doesn’t have an aurora because it doesn’t have the requisite atmosphere.
What causes auroras to appear on the Sun?
Space weather —caused by solar activity such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections—can impact the space between here and the sun and cause an aurora as a byproduct. Auroras can also be triggered by much less energetic events that lead to active conditions, such as fast solar wind streams from coronal holes.
It takes roughly two weeks for the earth to receive the heat and energy from these spots as the sun revolves, spitting out this energy which causes the Aurora Borealis; it is like a revolving leaking hose (ball shaped obviously) that consistently frees energy into the atmosphere with occasional sun flares pushing extra, huge amounts of energy out.
Why are auroras best to see at night?
Even though auroras are best seen at night, they are actually caused by the Sun. The Sun sends us more than heat and light; it sends lots of other energy and small particles our way.
Why are auroras the Calm Before the storm?
Rather than the calm before the storm, aurora is the light show after the storm in space. Auroras above the Northern and Southern Hemispheres evolve from the sun’s activity that affects the conditions in space on an enormous scale.