How Are The Northern Lights Caused

As nature s most spectacular light show the aurora borealis is an unforgettable sight that s shrouded in mystery.
How are the northern lights caused. What causes the northern lights. The northern lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the earth s atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun s atmosphere. This process creates the beautiful aurora or northern lights. During the cold dark months of winter this has surely become one of the hottest icelandic.
The auroras the aurora borealis or northern lights in the northern hemisphere and the aurora australis the southern lights in the southern hemisphere are brilliant natural spectacles that can be seen in the evening sky especially at higher latitudes. I first saw the northern lights three years ago while driving home one night. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. Year after year the northern lights consistently rank as one of the top reasons tourists choose iceland as their destination.
Unlike other phenomena of the night sky such as meteors and comets the auroras are. Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. What causes the northern lights. Auroras or aurorae sometimes referred to as polar lights aurora polaris northern lights aurora borealis or southern lights aurora australis is a natural light display in the earth s sky predominantly seen in high latitude regions around the arctic and antarctic.
Ffion age 6 75 pembrokeshire uk. The solar cycle peaked in 2013 but it was the weakest solar maximum in. These particles are dragged towards the poles as if they were magnets due to the. Colossal sheets of vividly colored light shimmy and dance across the night sky in locations near or within the arctic circle from siberia all the way to iceland.
The sunspots and solar storms that cause the most magnificent displays of the northern lights occur roughly every 11 years. An increasing percentage of visitors pay for guided northern lights tours while some opt for a self drive northern lights hunt. They were so beautiful i had to stop the. Eleanor imster she was an integral part of the award winning earthsky radio series almost since it began until it ended in 2013.
The most common auroral color a pale yellowish green is produced. Therefore the northern lights are the result of billions of energized molecules that emit small flashes of light when they hit our planet visible only at night.