what creates the northern lights?

Answer 1

My home country is famous for amazing view of the Northern Lights. I grew up with them and thought everyone else did so I just took them for granted.

The Northern lights, or Aurora Borealis are a complicated wonder. The short answer rom exploratorium.edu is how the aurora happens is that energetic electrically charged particles(mostly electrons) accelerate along the magnetic field lines intothe upper atmosphere, where they collide with gas atoms, causing the atoms to give off light. The spectacular, great auroars are powered by what's called the solar wind. The sun also has an atmosphere and a magnetic field that extend into space. The suns's atmosphere is made of hydrogen, which is itself made ofsubatomic particles; protons and elecrons. These particles are constantly boiling off the sun and streaming outward at very high speeds. Together, the sun's agnetic field and particles are called the solar wind.

If you like to view the most magnificent Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, a trip to Iceland would be worth it. (I know I may be biased)

Answer 2

When you observe the northern lights, you are seeing the visible end of an event that begun three or four days earlier at Sol, our sun.

The solar particles, which creates the northern light when they collide with Earth´s atmosphere gases, is emitted from the sun - often via huge explosions or flares, and into deep space.

Travelling with speeds up to a million kilometers per hour, the particles uses three to four days to reach Earth, where they are captured by Earth´s magnetic field.

The magnetic field guides the particles down to Earth´s magnetic poles, but before they reach down, the particles are stopped by Earth´s atmosphere.

Answer 3

reaD these anD yoU'll bE glaD yoU diD


The aurora borealis (the Northern Lights) and the aurora australis (the Southern Lights) have always fascinated mankind, and people even travel thousands of miles just to see the brilliant light shows in the earth's atmosphere. The auroras, both surrounding the north magnetic pole (aurora borealis) and south magnetic pole (aurora australis) occur when highly charged electrons from the solar wind interact with elements in the earth's atmosphere. Solar winds stream away from the sun at speeds of about 1 million miles per hour. When they reach the earth, some 40 hours after leaving the sun, they follow the lines of magnetic force generated by the earth's core and flow through the magnetosphere, a teardrop-shaped area of highly charged electrical and magnetic fields.
As the electrons enter the earth's upper atmosphere, they will encounter atoms of oxygen and nitrogen at altitudes from 20 to 200 miles above the earth's surface. The color of the aurora depends on which atom is struck, and the altitude of the meeting.

Green - oxygen, up to 150 miles in altitude
Red - oxygen, above 150 miles in altitude
Blue - nitrogen, up to 60 miles in altitude
Purple/violet - nitrogen, above 60 miles in altitude

All of the magnetic and electrical forces react with one another in constantly shifting combinations. These shifts and flows can be seen as the auroras "dance," moving along with the atmospheric currents that can reach 20,000,000 amperes at 50,000 volts. (In contrast, the circuit breakers in your home will disengage when current flow exceeds 15-30 amperes at 120 volts.)
The auroras generally occur along the "auroral ovals," which center on the magnetic poles (not the geographic poles) and roughly correspond with the Arctic and Antarctic circles. There are times, though, when the lights are farther south, usually when there are a lot of sunspots. Sunspot activity follows an 11-year cycle. The next peak will occur in 2001 and 2002, so opportunities to see auroras outside their normal range should be good.

There are many stories about sounds associated with auroras, but there are no recordings of auroral sounds. Scientists can't agree on what would produce sounds during the aurora.

By beauty princess

Answer 4

theyre caused by solar flares from the sun colliding with the earths atmosphere. Due to the earths magnetic field they are pulled towards the poles which is why in the northern hemisphere they can only be seen very far north.... hence the name northern lights.

Answer 5

Each twelve years the sunspots are at their highest activity.
These bursts of Radio Active gases have huge energy and they travel through space at the speed of light.
Our North Pole on earth emits magnetic fields and when hit by these rays they light up and change shape and colour.
These are called the Auria Borialis? something I can't remember or the Northern lights.
To me they also show the power of earths magnetism and I wonder if somehow it recharges our own magnetic fields?

Answer 6

the Northern lights or arora borealis are caused by particles from the sun hitting the earths magnetic field

Answer 7

I think it's a company called General Electric, they make all the bulbs and then the local council workers put them up each year.
Most people refer to them as the Blackpool illuminations but hey if you want to call then the Northern lights then that's cool.

Answer 8

Charged particles (electrons) from the solar wind generate by the sun interact with atoms in the earth's atmosphere energizing them. This energy is then released by the atoms as light.

Answer 9

Northern lights is a result of our atmosphere shielding against solar particles which would otherwise make our planet uninhabitable.

Answer 10

See this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28phenomenon%29

Quote: "Auroras are now known to be caused by the collision of charged particles (e.g. electrons), found in the Sun's Solar wind, with atoms in the Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 80 km)."