DailyCelestialChallenge Thursday: ForcesInNature
Northern Lights and Southern Aurora
This incredible light show occurs both in the Northern Hemisphere (Northern Lights) and in the Southern Hemisphere (Southern Aurora).
It is due to a collision of particles coming from the sun against oxygen and nitrogen atoms that are found in the ionosphere.
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it is a phenomenon in the form of brightness or luminescence that appears in the night sky, usually in polar areas, although it can appear in other parts of the world for short periods of time. In the northern hemisphere it is known as aurora borealis, and in the southern hemisphere as aurora australis, whose name comes from Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, and from the Greek word Boreas, which means north, because in Europe it commonly appears in the horizon of a reddish hue as if the sun emerged from an unusual direction.
Origin
A polar aurora occurs when an ejection of solar mass collides with the north and south poles of the Earth's magnetosphere, producing a diffuse but predominant light projected on the terrestrial ionosphere.
Auroras have very different shapes, structures and colors that also change rapidly over time. During one night, the aurora can begin as a very long isolated arc that extends on the horizon, generally in an east-west direction. Near midnight the arc can begin to increase its brightness.
The colors that we see in the auroras depend on the atomic or molecular species that the particles of the solar wind excite and on the level of energy that those atoms or molecules reach.
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This phenomenon is not restricted to the Earth. Other planets of the Solar System show analogous phenomena, such as Jupiter and Saturn that have magnetic fields stronger than Earth (Uranus, Neptune and Mercury also have magnetic fields), and both have wide radiation belts. Auroras have been observed on both planets, with the Hubble telescope.