The northern lights aren ’ t in my eyes – Aurora borealis

Lots of lucky locals, by which I mean people a bit further north in Norfolk saw the northern lights, the Aurora Borealis, in Norfolk and elsewhere. There is a slight possibility of seeing them in Cambridgeshire although finding somewhere with little light pollution around here is a tough call, but more to the point it’s been cloudy and wet when other places have had their lightshow these last couple of nights. In recent years they have been observed from Devon and Cornwall. Aurora borealis at Vestrahorn, Southern Iceland (Credit: Simaron) So, what are the northern lights? The northern lights are a natural phenomenon generally occurring close to the poles, in the high or low latitude regions of the Arctic and Antarctic. The phenomenon is caused by the interaction between charged particles from the Sun and the Earth’s protective magnetic field. The Sun constantly emits a stream of charged particles, called the solar wind, which travels through space and interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. When these charged particles collide with the oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere, they gain energy, they are excited, when the excitement passes, the particles release energy in the form of light. This produces the glowing, coloerful display that we see as the Northern Lights, or the Southern Lights, the Aurora Australis. The colours of the Northern Lights depend on the type of gas particles that are colliding with the charged particles and the altitud...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Astronomy Source Type: blogs