Aurora Borealis Essay

The Aurora Borealis is a beautiful pomposity of weightlessnesss created by nature that appear in the wickedness sky. Aurora Borealis, the Latin name of the cockcrow of the Yankee hemisphere, means the reddened dawn of the north. The name comes from the famous Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who, among other things, studied the lights rough the stratum 1600. In Rome, were Galileo was living, the red color dominates, but the most reciprocal color is actu t fall out ensembley greenish-yellow, which I leave al cardinal cover later in the presentation. The Vikings in the year 700-1000 called it simply Yankee lights, and in premature England they called it The refreshing Dancers referring to the way the dawn moves.Originating in the atmosphere high above the come to the fore of the earth, the northern lights can be seen during dark hours in the polar regions of the northern hemisphere. There are similar lights that appear in the gray hemisphere. The southern lights and nor thern lights are identical phenomenons. When you stir a northern lights display, you pull up stakes also have an equally large southern lights display. The only rationality we dont hear about southern lights much is that in that respect arent much settlements in Antarctica. southeastern lights issue forth around the geo magnetised South Pole. The scientific name for southern lights is Aurora Australis.The amazing occurrence of the break of day actually starts high above the earths atmosphere. The lie emits a continuous stream of ionized gas during its solar flares. This gas consists of electrons, protons and helium nuclei. The stream of gasses leaving the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind approaches Earth, the particles are influenced by the Earths charismatic field and are guided toward ovate zones around the magnetic poles. The solar wind particles then collide with air molecules in the upper atmosphere. The collisions contain energy to air molecules, prim arily oxygen and nitrogen, and cause them to emit light, called the aurora.The display of lights occurs only above altitudes of 80 kilometers and occasionally above 500 kilometers. The average altitude is between 110 and200 kilometers. Due to the nature of our magnetic field, the aurora can only been seen in certain move of the sky. The northern lights exist in an oval shaped area called the aurora oval, and this oval rotates with its center in the geomagnetic north pole. The size of this oval varies on an periodical basis with the amount of incoming solar particles. The best observation sites of the aurora borealis are underneath the oval where there is the most geomagnetic activity. Geomagnetic energy is metric in Kp index, which is a scale from 0 to 9. A high Kp indicates a higher chance of auroral activity. One commonly needs a Kp of around 3 to be capable to witness an aurora.The oval usually occurs over northern parts of the Nordic countries, including all of Greenland and Svalbard, northern parts of Alaska, Canada and Russia. Here one may observe northern lights 90% of the measure, which is virtually every clear dark night. Though auroras occur all day, the day-side aurora has much weaker light than the night-side auroras. Strong daylight also outshines the day-side aurora, so you will have to observe the aurora during night- usually in the hours around midnight. just down south observation time decreases rapidly as one reaches the outskirts of the aurora oval. Though the oval usually stays high in the Northern Hemisphere it does have capabilities to reach parts of the southern unify States. On November 6th, 2001, it reached down to Texas, and once every 200th year it goes all the way down to the equator.After years of recording the aurora, one has observe that February, March and October enjoys a little bit more aurora time than other months, although this doesnt mean spectacular displays wont occur during other months. Auroras are more freque nt late autumn and early spring. Brilliant auroras often occur at 27-day intervals as active areas on the Suns surface face Earth during its 27-day rotation cycle. Also, the sun has an eleven year sun spot cycle. Every eleventh year the number of spots peak and the number of solar particles thrown out into space increases dramatically. Aurora activity remains high one to ii years after this event, which is called Solar Maximum. We had solar maximum around brisk year, 2001, and the next is expected to occur around 2011 or 2012.These lights come in a variation of colourize. The Sun radiates all visiblecolors, which is why fair weather appears white. The spectrum of visible light associated with the aurora is much narrower. The aurora is caused by particles of the solar wind colliding with atmospheric atoms and ions. The atmosphere consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, which when hit, emits characteristic colors. The colors that these gasses emit are green, red, bluish, and yello w. There are also seven differentiations in the shape that the auroras will take Homogeneous arc, arc with ray structure, solid band, band with ray structure, curtains, rays, and corona. These different shapes and colors form one of the earths superlative phenomenons that to this day continue to boggle the mind of scientists and everyday society.In the early 20th century, auroral research focused on light emission, altitude, distribution and color. Today, scientists strive to understand the processes that produce the various forms of the northern lights and sweat to explain their changes in time and space. Scientists are especially interested in the effects of solar activity on the Earths near-space. prevalent interest in possible global climatic change has change magnitude in recent decades. Because atmospheric conditions in the altitudes of the aurora appear to have a long-term effect on weather, auroral research has authoritative heightened attention.