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AU R O R A
? ? BY SOPHIA NASR? ??????????????????????????????????
No one can deny the beauty of
and Aurora Australis to “dawn of
aurorae, a stunning display of
the south”. Now, let’s get to the
colorful lights dancing gracefully
formation of aurorae. In addition
about the sky. Usually these beau-
to emitting light which travels
tiful sky lights can only be seen at
at c = 3.00*10^8 m/s and takes
high latitudes. But how do these
about 8 minutes to reach Earth,
beautiful aurorae form in the sky?
the Sun also spits out plasma
Why can they only be seen from
during solar storms which travels
extreme northern or southern lat-
at much slower speeds. During
itudes? How are the various colors
such storms, the Sun sends out a
produced? First, let’s get familiarized with the naming of aurora
with respect to the part of the
hemisphere in which they occur.
In the northern hemisphere,
they are called Aurora Borealis,
or northern lights. In the southern hemisphere, they are known
as Aurora Australis, or southern
lights. From Latin, Aurora Borealis
translates to “dawn of the north”,
flow of highly charged particles,
sometimes directed at the Earth.
These charged particles travel at
speeds of up to 8 million km/h
ICY SCIENCE | WINTER 2013- 2014