Have you ever seen photos of colorful lights in the sky at Earth's polar regions? It is an aurora or polar light. An aurora is a natural phenomenon in which red, blue, yellow, green and orange lights shine and change in the sky.
There are two types of aurorae, aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora Australis (southern lights). The aurora Borealis is seen most nights in the northern region near the Arctic Circle, about 66.5 degrees north of the equator. The aurora Australis is seen nearly every night in the southern region near the Antarctic Rim, about 66.5 degrees south of the equator.
How are the Aurora Formed?
Auroras are the result of collisions between high-energy electrons or protons from the Sun, with Oxygen or Nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere. The energetic protons or electrons are released from the Sun in the event of a solar storm. When colliding with atoms, there is a transfer of energy, so that the atoms are in a metastable state.
In such a situation, some of the electrons possessed by the Oxygen or Nitrogen atoms will absorb the additional energy, thus moving to the outer shell of the atom. This movement causes the atom to have a metastable status, because each atomic shell can only be occupied by electrons with a certain number and spin (rotational) properties.
As a reaction, the atom will return to a stable state by returning the electrons to their original atomic shell. This process is called excitation, which is followed by the emission of photons of light according to the difference in energy between the two shells of the atom.
The photon energy is very specific for each atom, so the process of excitation of the Oxygen atom will produce a photon of light whose color is different from the similar excitation on the Nitrogen atom.
Protons and electrons are electrically charged particles, so they can be influenced by magnetic field lines, including the earth's magnetic field. Earth is a giant magnet with a magnetic north pole on the edge of Antarctica, while a south pole off the north coast of Canada.
The magnetic properties of the Earth are generated and maintained continuously by the dynamo mechanism in the Earth's outer core. In the liquid core layer, there are convection and rotational currents (due to the Coriolis force) against the core material which is very rich in metal and free electrons. The flow of free electrons generates a dynamo electric current, and this electric current produces a magnetic field.
The Earth's magnetic field makes up the structure of the magnetosphere, similar to that of a number of other planets in our solar system.
When the Sun's energetic protons and electrons arrive at Earth, the magnetosphere will deflect their motion away from Earth. But in a special case, the deflection will cause the particles to meet in the recombination area, which is in the "tail" of the magnetosphere, facing away from the Sun.
When these particles enter the recombinant area, they will be routed to the Earth's magnetic poles by traveling along the edge of the van Allen radiation belt. In this process there is a collision between energetic protons and electrons with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere layer above the polar region. This is what creates the phenomenon of the aurora. You can enjoy the colors of the Aurora in Norway
Colors of the Aurora
The different colors of the aurora produced vary, based on the altitude and the air atoms involved. If the ion collides with the higher-tasting oxygen, the resulting color will be red. Generally, a yellowish-green color results from oxygen being at lower altitudes. Another color is a bluish red that appears due to the ion colliding with nitrogen.
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