Why does aurora borealis

The last time solar activity peaked was in , and the cycle is now reaching its minimum. However, solar activity is predicted to rise again through to the mids. Regardless of the Sun's activity, aurorae can still occur at any time and observers in high latitudes should always look out for them.

Phillip Pullman, His Dark Materials. What is the aurora? Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. See the world's greatest space photography at the National Maritime Museum. Discover the incomparable beauty of the Northern Lights with this accessible guide for aspiring astronomers and seasoned night sky observers Buy Now.

Aurorae Astronomy Photographer of the Year. See the stunning winning and shortlisted images in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Aurorae category.

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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. An atmosphere is the layers of gases surrounding a planet or other celestial body. These gases are found in layers troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere defined by unique features such as temperature and pressure.

The atmosphere protects life on earth by shielding it from incoming ultraviolet UV radiation, keeping the planet warm through insulation, and preventing extremes between day and night temperatures. The sun heats layers of the atmosphere causing it to convect driving air movement and weather patterns around the world.

Teach your students about the Earth's atmosphere with the resources in this collection. The sun is an ordinary star, one of about billion in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The sun has extremely important influences on our planet: It drives weather, ocean currents, seasons, and climate, and makes plant life possible through photosynthesis.

Students learn how solar activity is monitored and examine the impact the sun has on space weather and Earth systems. Magnetism is the force exerted by magnets when they attract or repel each other. Sometimes there's a lull, but other times, there are vast storms that bombard Earth with extreme amounts of energy. This is when the northern lights are at their brightest and most frequent.

The last solar maximum, or period of peak activity, occurred in , according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA , placing the next one in approximately Despite plenty of advances in heliophysics and atmospheric science, much about the northern lights remains a mystery. NASA is also on the hunt for clues about how the northern lights work. In , the space agency launched the Parker Solar Probe , which is currently orbiting the sun and will eventually get close enough to "touch" the corona.

While there, the spacecraft will collect information that could reveal more about the northern lights. On Earth, the northern lights' counterpart in the Southern Hemisphere is the southern lights — they are physically the same and differ only in their location.

As such, scientists expect them to occur simultaneously during a solar storm, but sometimes the onset of one lags behind the other. The hemispheric asymmetry of the aurora is in part due to the sun's magnetic field interfering with Earth's magnetic field, but research into the phenomenon is ongoing.

Like the northern and southern lights, STEVE is a glowing atmospheric phenomenon, but it looks slightly different from its undulating auroral counterparts. A study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters discovered that STEVE is the result of two mechanisms: The mauve streaks are caused by the heating of charged particles in the upper atmosphere, while the picket-fence structure results from electrons falling into the atmosphere.

The bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as 'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora australis' in the south.. Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common.

Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported. The lights appear in many forms from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

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.

Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth.

Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora.