Tokyo40
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 16, 2013
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The northern lights, or aurora borealis, offer an entrancing, dramatic, magical display that fascinates all who see it but just what causes this dazzling natural phenomenon?
The sun's many magnetic fields distort and twist as our parent star rotates on its axis. When these fields become knotted together, they burst and create so-called sunspots.
At the center of the sun, the temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius.
As the temperature on its surface rises and falls, the sun boils and bubbles. Particles escape from the star from the sunspot regions on the surface, hurtling particles of plasma, known as solar wind, into space.
It takes these winds around 40 hours to reach Earth. When they do, they can cause the dramatic displays known as the aurora borealis.
Aurora is the Roman Goddess of dawn.
Boreas is the Greek name for the north wind.
Some of the countries one can see the Northern Lights are USA, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, UK, Denmark and Iceland.
source:space.com & cnn.com
The sun's many magnetic fields distort and twist as our parent star rotates on its axis. When these fields become knotted together, they burst and create so-called sunspots.
At the center of the sun, the temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius.
As the temperature on its surface rises and falls, the sun boils and bubbles. Particles escape from the star from the sunspot regions on the surface, hurtling particles of plasma, known as solar wind, into space.
It takes these winds around 40 hours to reach Earth. When they do, they can cause the dramatic displays known as the aurora borealis.
Aurora is the Roman Goddess of dawn.
Boreas is the Greek name for the north wind.
Some of the countries one can see the Northern Lights are USA, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, UK, Denmark and Iceland.
source:space.com & cnn.com