What's That in the Sky?
Through science fiction movies, we have become familiar with "forcefields", those invisible shields that protect a spaceship or planet from certain destruction. But its fiction, right?! Wrong!
Actually, our very own planet Earth has a real forcefield, called our magnetic field. This shield protects us from destructive rays and particles, most of which come from our very own star, the sun. After traveling all the way to Earth (93 million miles), the suns' discharged particles encounter something new... our atmosphere!
Check out this diagram
The Earths' atmosphere has gases (thank goodness, we can breathe!) that interact with these sun particles, and create colored lights. When these particles pass through the magnetic fields near the north and south poles and collide with these atoms, amazing colors appear. The most abundant gases in our atmosphere put on quite a show for those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
- oxygen - produces green and yellow light
- nitrogen - produces blue, violet and red light
Based on these colors, what atmospheric gases are present? Leave me a comment!
When the sun experiences solar storms with unusually high particle discharging activity, the northern lights can appear as shimmering curtains of color.
Aurora borealis means "northern lights" . Look up the word "boreal" and see why this word is so significant. What do you think Aurora australis means? Where would you expect to see these? Read more about Northern Lights here.
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