AURORAS: SOLAR PAINTINGS

aURORAS: SOLAR PAINTINGS

The sun ejects charged particles (protons and electrons) from its corona (or upper atmosphere), creating the solar wind.

The particles travel towards Earth and slam into its magnetic field at speeds up to 45 million mph (72 million km/h).

An aurora (typical feature of high-latitude regions) is a natural display of light in the Earth's sky caused by the interaction between Earth's magnetic field and the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind.

The charged particles move in spirals along the magnetic field lines, hitting the Earth’s atmosphere.

Most of those particles enter the atmospheric gases in a ring around the magnetic poles. The aurora is born.

Particles collide with oxygen (which typically glows green and red) and nitrogen atoms (which give off blue and purple light), knocking away electrons to leave ions in excited states.

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The best place to see the northern lights is the auroral zone, the area within an approximately 2,500 km radius of the North Pole.

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SOLAR WIND

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MAGNETIC FIELD

MAGNETIC SHIELD

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