Aurora (northen lights)

The Aurora
Borealis shines
above Bear
Lake

Red and green Aurora in Fairbanks, Alaska

Aurora australis in Antarctica

Auroras, also known as northern and

southern (polar) lights or aurorae
(singular: aurora), are natural light
displays in the sky, usually observed at night, particularly in the
polar regions. They typically occur in the ionosphere. They are also
referred to as polar auroras. This is a misnomer however, because
they are commonly visible between 65 to 72 degrees north and
south latitudes, which would place it in a ring just within the Arctic
and Antarctic circles. Aurorae occur deeper inside the polar regions,
but these are infrequent occurrences, and these are often invisible
to the naked eye.

In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis,

named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek
name for north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621.[1] The
aurora borealis is also called the northern polar lights, as it is
only visible in the sky from the Northern Hemisphere, with the
chance of visibility increasing with proximity to the North Magnetic
Pole. (Earth's is currently in the arctic islands of northern Canada.)
Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but
from further away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a
greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the sun were rising
from an unusual direction. The Aurora Borealis most often occurs
near the equinoxes. The northern lights have had a number of
names throughout history. The Cree call this phenomenon the
"Dance of the Spirits." In the Middle Ages the auroras have been
called a sign from God (see Wilfried Schröder, Das Phänomen des
Polarlichts, Darmstadt 1984).

Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis or the southern

polar lights, has similar properties, but is only visible from high
southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America, or Australasia.
Australis is the Latin word for "of the South."

Auroras can be spotted throughout the world and on other planets.

It is most visible closer to the poles due to the longer periods of
darkness and the magnetic field.

Auroral mechanism
Auroras are the result of the emissions of photons in the Earth's
upper atmosphere, above 80 km (50 miles), from ionized nitrogen
atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms
returning from an excited state to ground state. They are ionized or
excited by the collision of solar wind particles being funneled down
and accelerated along the Earth's magnetic field lines; excitation
energy is lost by the emission of a photon of light, or by collision
with another atom or molecule:

oxygen emissions
Green or brownish-red, depending on the amount of energy
absorbed.
nitrogen emissions
Blue or red. Blue if the atom regains an electron after it has
been ionized. Red if returning to ground state from an excited
state.

Oxygen is unusual in terms of its return to ground state: it can take

three quarters of a second to emit green light and up to two minutes
to emit red. Collisions with other atoms or molecules will absorb the
excitation energy and prevent emission. The very top of the
atmosphere is both a higher percentage of oxygen, and so thin that
such collisions are rare enough to allow time for oxygen to emit red.
Collisions become more frequent progressing down into the
atmosphere, so that red emissions do not have time to happen, and
eventually even green light emissions are prevented.

This is why there is a colour differential with altitude; at high

altitude oxygen red dominates, then oxygen green and nitrogen
blue/red, then finally nitrogen blue/red when collisions prevent
oxygen from emitting anything. Green is the most common of all
auroras. Behind it is pink, a mixture of light green and red, followed
by pure red, yellow (a mixture of red and blue), and lastly pure blue.

A predominantly red aurora australis

Auroras are associated with the solar wind, a flow of ions

continuously flowing outward from the sun. The Earth's magnetic
field traps these particles, many of which travel toward the poles
where they are accelerated toward earth. Collisions between these
ions and atmospheric atoms and molecules causes energy releases
in the form of auroras appearing in large circles around the poles.
Auroras are more frequent and brighter during the intense phase of
the solar cycle when coronal mass ejections increase the intensity of
the solar wind.[2] Seen from space, these fiery curtains form a thin
ring in the shape of a monk's tonsure.

Forms and magnetism

Northern lights over Calgary

Typically the aurora appears either as a diffuse glow or as "curtains"

that approximately extend in the east-west direction. At some
times, they form "quiet arcs"; at others ("active aurora"), they
evolve and change constantly. Each curtain consists of many
parallel rays, each lined up with the local direction of the magnetic
field lines, suggesting that aurora is shaped by Earth's magnetic
field. Indeed, satellites show electrons to be guided by magnetic
field lines, spiraling around them while moving towards Earth.

The similarity to curtains is often enhanced by folds called

"striations". When the field line guiding a bright auroral patch leads
to a point directly above the observer, the aurora may appear as a
"corona" of diverging rays, an effect of perspective.

Although it was first mentioned by Ancient Greek

explorer/geographer Pytheas, Hiorter and Celsius first described in
1741 evidence for magnetic control, namely, large magnetic
fluctuations occurred whenever the aurora was observed overhead.
This indicates (it was later realized) that large electric currents were
associated with the aurora, flowing in the region where auroral light
originated. Kristian Birkeland (1908)[3] deduced that the currents
flowed in the east-west directions along the auroral arc, and such
currents, flowing from the dayside towards (approximately)
midnight were later named "auroral electrojets" (see also Birkeland
currents).

On 26 February 2008, THEMIS probes were able to determine, for

the first time, the triggering event for the onset of magnetospheric
substorms.[4] Two of the five probes, positioned approximately one
third the distance to the moon, measured events suggesting a
magnetic reconnection event 96 seconds prior to auroral
intensification.[5] Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of
California, Los Angeles, the principal investigator for the THEMIS
mission, claimed, "Our data show clearly and for the first time that
magnetic reconnection is the trigger." [6]

Still more evidence for a magnetic connection are the statistics of

auroral observations. Elias Loomis (1860) and later in more detail
Hermann Fritz (1881)[7] established that the aurora appeared mainly
in the "auroral zone", a ring-shaped region with a radius of
approximately 2500 km around Earth's magnetic pole. It was hardly
ever seen near the geographic pole, which is about 2000 km away
from the magnetic pole. The instantaneous distribution of auroras
("auroral oval", Yasha/Jakob Feldstein 1963[8]) is slightly different,
centered about 3-5 degrees nightward of the magnetic pole, so that
auroral arcs reach furthest towards the equator around midnight.
The aurora can be seen best at this time.

Solar wind and the magnetosphere

Schematic of Earth's magnetosphere

The Earth is constantly immersed in the solar wind, a rarefied flow

of hot plasma (gas of free electrons and positive ions) emitted by
the Sun in all directions, a result of the million-degree heat of the
Sun's outermost layer, the corona. The solar wind usually reaches
Earth with a velocity around 400 km/s, density around 5 ions/cm3
and magnetic field intensity around 2–5 nT (nanoteslas; Earth's
surface field is typically 30,000–50,000 nT). These are typical
values. During magnetic storms, in particular, flows can be several
times faster; the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) may also be
much stronger.

The IMF originates on the Sun, related to the field of sunspots, and
its field lines (lines of force) are dragged out by the solar wind. That
alone would tend to line them up in the Sun-Earth direction, but the
rotation of the Sun skews them (at Earth) by about 45 degrees, so
that field lines passing Earth may actually start near the western
edge ("limb") of the visible sun.[9]

Earth's magnetosphere is formed by the impact of the solar wind on

the Earth's magnetic field. It forms an obstacle to the solar wind,
diverting it, at a distance of about 70,000 km, forming a bow shock
12,000 km to 15,000 km further upstream. The width of the
magnetosphere abreast of Earth, is typically 190,000 km, and on
the night side a long "magnetotail" of stretched field lines extends
to great distances.
The magnetosphere is full of ions trapped as the solar wind passes
the earth. Perturbations in the solar wind increase this flow of ions.
The excess moving along field lines and eventually accelerated
toward the poles are responsible for changes in the aurora.

Frequency of occurrence

Aurora australis 1994 from Bluff, New Zealand

Auroras are common near the Poles. They are occasionally seen in
temperate latitudes, when a magnetic storm temporarily expands
the auroral oval. Large magnetic storms are most common during
the peak of the eleven-year sunspot cycle or during the three years
after that peak.[citation needed] However, within the auroral zone the
likelihood of an aurora occurring depends mostly on the slant of IMF
lines (the slant is known as Bz), being greater with southward slants.

Geomagnetic storms that ignite auroras actually happen more often

during the months around the equinoxes. It is not well understood
why geomagnetic storms are tied to Earth's seasons while polar
activity is not. But it is known that during spring and autumn, the
interplanetary magnetic field and that of Earth link up. At the
magnetopause, Earth's magnetic field points north. When Bz
becomes large and negative (i.e., the IMF tilts south), it can partially
cancel Earth's magnetic field at the point of contact. South-pointing
Bz's open a door through which energy from the solar wind can
reach Earth's inner magnetosphere.

The peaking of Bz during this time is a result of geometry. The

interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) comes from the Sun and is
carried outward with the solar wind. Because the Sun rotates the
IMF has a spiral shape. Earth's magnetic dipole axis is most closely
aligned with the Parker spiral in April and October. As a result,
southward (and northward) excursions of Bz are greatest then.

However, Bz is not the only influence on geomagnetic activity. The

Sun's rotation axis is tilted 8 degrees with respect to the plane of
Earth's orbit. Because the solar wind blows more rapidly from the
Sun's poles than from its equator, the average speed of particles
buffeting Earth's magnetosphere waxes and wanes every six
months. The solar wind speed is greatest — by about 50 km/s, on
average — around 5 September and 5 March when Earth lies at its
highest heliographic latitude.

Still, neither Bz nor the solar wind can fully explain the seasonal
behavior of geomagnetic storms. Those factors together contribute
only about one-third of the observed semiannual variations.