aurora | National Geographic Society

An aurora is a natural light display that shimmers in the sky,Colorful blue, red, yellow, green, and orange lights shift gently and change shape like softly blowing curtains. . Auroras are only visible at night, and usually only appear in lower polar regions.

Auroras are visible almost every night near the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, which are about 66.5 degrees north and south of the Equator. In the north, the display is called aurora borealis, or northern lights. In the south, it is called aurora australis.

Solar storms on our star's surface give out huge clouds of electrically charged particles. These particles can travel millions of miles, and some may eventually collide with the Earth.

Most of these particles are deflected away, but some become captured in the Earth’s magnetic field, accelerating down towards the north and south poles into the atmosphere. This is why aurora activity is concentrated at the magnetic poles.

“These particles then slam into atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere and essentially heat them up.excitation’, but it’s very much like heating a gas and making it glow.