Northern Lights Research Paper

Aurora’s are one of the seven wonders of the world, because they are stunning. Aurora’s are formed when particles from the sun hit the Earth. These “particles” are called solar winds. They contain a lot of energy, and when they hit other atoms, like the Earth’s atmosphere, they emit light, which creates the aurora’s. Aurora’s emit different colors of light depending on what gas they are emitting. Green, like the one here, and maroon, occur because they emit oxygen. A blue color occurs when nitrogen is given off. Last, red can mean both oxygen or nitrogen.

While some say the event can only be observed during clear weather, the night I saw the lights it was fairly cool, misting rain and very foggy. It was quite amazing to see. We had been sitting at Wisemans View for almost 4 hours and had almost given up when a faint glow appeared on the side of the mountain. We watched it move slowly down the mountain then a second light appeared. They both descended down until reaching the river at the bottom. The lights disappeared completely and after a few seconds reappeared on the other side of the river. The hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck stood up. We continued to watch the pair of lights move along the ridge until they just

Which of the following can be attributed to refraction of light in theA.The green flash, which is a light green color on the upper rim of the Sun as it is setting

How are the colors of the Northern Lights created? "The atmosphere contains mostly nitrogen and oxygen, which the characteristics colors of their respective line spectra." [webexhibits.org] The Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, has many elements in the surface of the earth. There's atomic oxygen, nitrogen, mixed with hydrogen. "Only one of these elements are responsible for the two main colors which are green and red." [webexhibits.org] You would think that the Aurora was just lights appearing in the sky but they're actually distractions between electrically charged particles from the sun that comes into the earth's atmosphere. [northernlightscentre.ca] The most common colors are green, yellow, and red. Nitrogen causes most of the blue, purple, and red parts, the bright cool colors. Atomic oxygen causes most of the orange and yellow parts, the warm colors. Northern Lights are like curtains in the sky

Coronal Mass Ejection also known as CME is usually created around the sun’s surface by magnetic reconnection. CME is a large bubble of gas and magnetic field lines that are emerged from the sun. There isn’t a full proven understanding of how CME’s occur but Astronomers have come to a theory that because the sun is a fluid, the turbulence gets kinks that get shot out into space in any direction as a superheated gas. The gas that is ejected from the sun is made of protons and electrons carried through solar winds. This gas is known as plasma and can accelerate over 1 million miles per hour and reach Earth that is 93 million miles away in less than 4 days. When the sun is most active Coronal Mass Ejections can happen multiple times per day however, it usually occurs once every 5 days.

The sun produces electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths, with the visible spectrum being the most intense wavelength range produced as the radiation peaks at this area of the EM spectrum. The Earth’s atmosphere absorbs most of this radiation but light and radio waves are able to penetrate the atmosphere, as well as short wavelength infrared rays and long wavelength microwaves. X-rays and gamma rays are absorbed by the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

A hypnotizing video released by NASA yesterday shows stunning imagery of a plasma bursting from the Sun. The solar flare was so strong that it caused radio blackouts all across the earth. Did the space agency just stumble upon the gates of Heaven?

Sunspots are disturbances that occur on the suns surface as a result of magnetic activity in the Sun’s interior. They appear as dark spots composed of a darker centre called the umbra that are surrounded by a lighter area called the penumbra.

The Northern Lights is a glowing demonstration of Earth’s magnetic field communicating with charged particles from the sun. The zone runs around the Northern Coast of Siberia, Scandinavia, Iceland, the Southern tip of Greenland, Northern Canada and Alaska. The scientific name for them is Aurora Borealis. But, how do the Northern Lights appear?

Sunspots are regions on the surface of the sun, which is called the photosphere. Sunspots are cool, dark and temporary. The surface temperate of the sun is 6000 Celsius and sunspots are about 1500 Celsius. They can last up to hours or even months. Sunspots usually expand and contract as they move across the surface of the sun and can be as large as 80,000 km in diameter. Sunspots are magnetic fields on the sun, which are thousand times stronger than the magnetic fields on the earth. The magnetic field is the strongest in the darker parts of the sunspot, which is called umbra. The field is weaker in the lighter part, which is the penumbra. These are solar "storms", a kind of "burp" where the Sun ejects high-speed and energetic particles, which

The surface of the sun is worlds away. But on that surface, immense storms rage across the surface. These storms hurtle gusts of charged solar particles across the abyss of space. If the Earth happens to be in the path of the particles, the particles collide with molecules and atoms in the Earth's atmosphere. These atoms become stimulated by the sun's particles and light up. But what happens to cause the atoms to light up is where things start to get interesting.

Large sunspots could have a diameter of about 20,000 miles, which is several times larger than the Earth’s diameter, and they can last for months. Sunspots have a dark central region called the umbra and the lighter surrounding region of it is called the penumbra. A pore is a smaller sunspot that has no penumbra. Pores may only be several hundred miles and last only for a few hours. The sunspot cycle is the number of sunspots and solar latitudes at which they appear and vary over a period of 11 years. During the beginning of a cycle sunspots are between 20 degrees and 40 degrees north and south of the sun’s equator. Later on in the cycle the spots increase in number and get closer to the solar equator. Sunspot’s magnetic fields have a strength 3,000 times greater than an average magnetic field of either the Sun or Earth. Astronomers believe that may have something to do with the cause of

The Aurora Borealis also known as “Northern Lights”, are bright lights that appear when the sun's temperature rises. When the temperature rises and the sun begins to overheat it releases oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen and Nitrogen are the key factors that gives you the colors that are associated with the lights. “The colors most often associated with the aurora borealis are pink, green, yellow, blue, violet, and occasionally orange and white. Typically, when the particles collide with oxygen, yellow and green are produced. Interactions with nitrogen produce red, violet, and occasionally blue colors.” (SPACE.com Staff 3). This quote gives us a little more information about what colors are present, and how they are formed. You can mainly see these

Colors on the lower end of the specrum vibrate at a slower rate such as red, orange and yellow. As energy vibrates at a higher frequency the colors alter to include green, blue, indigo, violet, red-blue and gold.

Still others speculate the Marfa Lights may be caused by the same gases that create the glowing lights associated with swamp gas: phosphine (PH3) and methane (CH4). Under certain conditions, these gases can ignite when they contact oxygen. This glowing phenomenon, sometimes called “will-o-the-wisp,” “ignes fatui,” or “fools fire,” has been observed around the world, especially in marshy areas where the decay of organic matter can create pockets of phosphine and