Aurora Borealis : The Northern Lights

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

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

Njaa · Jul 23, 2015

Asante, kumbe jua nalo linajizungusha kwenye muhimili wake? Najua leo....., au na lenyewe pia lina orbit yake likizunguka kama sayari mama yetu dunia?

Bavaria · Jul 23, 2015

"Aurora" jina zuri.

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

Njaa said:
Asante, kumbe jua nalo linajizungusha kwenye muhimili wake? Najua leo....., au na lenyewe pia lina orbit yake likizunguka kama sayari mama yetu dunia?

Yes, the Sun does spin, or rotate. Because it is a gas, it does not rotate like a solid.

While the Earth takes 24 hours to do one rotation, whether you are standing at the equator or close to either the South or North Pole, the Sun actually rotates fastest at its equator.

On the Suns equator any point takes 25 days to rotate completely around the star but as you get close to either of the Suns poles it can take 31 days.

These measurements have been made by using sunspots as tracers of the surface and watching them turn with the star.

source:spaceanswers.com

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

Bavaria said:
"Aurora" jina zuri.

Hata mimi nalipenda.

Bavaria · Jul 23, 2015

Tokyo40 said:
Hata mimi nalipenda.

Kuna kampuni inaitwa Aurora.

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

More thorough explanation from earthsky.com

The planets in our solar system orbit around the sun. One orbit of the Earth takes one year.

Meanwhile, our entire solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Our sun and solar system move at about 800 thousand kilometers an hour thats about 500 thousand miles an hour in this huge orbit.

So in 90 seconds, for example, we all move some 20,000 kilometers or 12,500 miles in orbit around the galaxys center.

Our Milky Way galaxy is a big place. Even at this blazing speed, it takes the sun approximately 225-250 million years to complete one journey around the galaxys center.

This amount of time the time it takes us to orbit the center of the galaxy is sometimes called a cosmic year.

Revolve means orbit around another body. Earth revolves (or orbits) around the sun.

The sun revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

On the other hand, rotate means to spin on its axis.

The Earth rotates every 24 hours. The sun rotates, but not at a single rate across its surface.

The movements of the sunspots indicate that the sun rotates once every 27 days at its equator, but only once in 31 days at its poles.

What about the Milky Way galaxy? Yes, the whole galaxy could be said to rotate, but like the sun it is spinning at different rates as you move outward from its center.

At our suns distance from the center of the Milky Way, its rotating once about every 200 million years defined by the length of time the sun takes to orbit the center of the galaxy.

Bottom line: The planets in our solar system orbit (revolve) around the sun, and the sun orbits (revolves) around the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

We take about 200 million years to revolve once around the galaxys center. This length of time is called a cosmic year.

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

Bavaria said:
Kuna kampuni inaitwa Aurora.

Rafiki yangu anaitwa Aurora na pia kuna miji mingi inaitwa Aurora kama Aurora, Colorado, USA.

farkhina · Jul 23, 2015

Beautiful 😊😊

farkhina · Jul 23, 2015

Bavaria said:
Kuna kampuni inaitwa Aurora.

Watu wengi tu waitwa aurora hata mie nimelipenda hili jina

shegacool2015 · Jul 23, 2015

farkhina said:
Watu wengi tu waitwa aurora hata mie nimelipenda hili jina

Kina Aurore wapi ila ina maana nyingine

farkhina · Jul 23, 2015

shegacool2015 said:
Kina Aurore wapi ila ina maana nyingine

Wazungu maana nyengine ipi?

Njaa · Jul 23, 2015

Tokyo40 said:
More thorough explanation from earthsky.com

The planets in our solar system orbit around the sun. One orbit of the Earth takes one year.

Meanwhile, our entire solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Our sun and solar system move at about 800 thousand kilometers an hour – that's about 500 thousand miles an hour – in this huge orbit.

So in 90 seconds, for example, we all move some 20,000 kilometers – or 12,500 miles – in orbit around the galaxy's center.

Our Milky Way galaxy is a big place. Even at this blazing speed, it takes the sun approximately 225-250 million years to complete one journey around the galaxy's center.

This amount of time – the time it takes us to orbit the center of the galaxy – is sometimes called a "cosmic year."

Revolve means "orbit around another body." Earth revolves (or orbits) around the sun.

The sun revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

On the other hand, rotate means "to spin on its axis".

The Earth rotates every 24 hours. The sun rotates, but not at a single rate across its surface.

The movements of the sunspots indicate that the sun rotates once every 27 days at its equator, but only once in 31 days at its poles.

What about the Milky Way galaxy? Yes, the whole galaxy could be said to rotate, but like the sun it is spinning at different rates as you move outward from its center.

At our sun's distance from the center of the Milky Way, it's rotating once about every 200 million years – defined by the length of time the sun takes to orbit the center of the galaxy.

Bottom line: The planets in our solar system orbit (revolve) around the sun, and the sun orbits (revolves) around the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

We take about 200 million years to revolve once around the galaxy's center. This length of time is called a "cosmic year."

Just for red highlights

How could the sun orbit alone around our galaxy? May be the whole of our solar system does. Even though, I am still doubting, all planets revolves around their parent stars because of gravitational and centrifugal forces. What its makes our solar systems and other solar systems to revolves around centre of galaxies? By the way, arrangements of solar systems in our galaxy are not well organized as planets and their parent stars, so collisions would have happened after every few millions years.

I am just thinking, not very much sure though

Tokyo40 · Jul 23, 2015

Njaa said:
Just for red highlights

How could the sun orbit alone around our galaxy? May be the whole of our solar system does. Even though, I am still doubting, all planets revolves around their parent stars because of gravitational and centrifugal forces. What its makes our solar systems and other solar systems to revolves around centre of galaxies? By the way, arrangements of solar systems in our galaxy are not well organized as planets and their parent stars, so collisions would have happened after every few millions years.

I am just thinking, not very much sure though

The study of our solar system is at its infancy. We have much to learn and explore.

It's work in progress, so to speak.

So, your guess is as good as mine.

Computer simulations show a slight chance the Earth colliding with Mercury, Mars or Venus in the next few billion years. Again, it's just a computer simulation based on little we know today. And many scientists are skeptical about this scenario.

I am more concerned about the comets and asteroids hitting the earth in our lifetime.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy broke apart in 1994 and hit Jupiter. 21 fragments as large as 2 KM in diameter hit into the atmosphere of Jupiter. If these fragments had hit the earth instead, we would have been kaput!

NASA is of course keeping an eye on these monster comets/ asteroids and trying to build a spacecrafts to change the orbit of an asteroid or comet on a collision course with the earth.

The trick is to use "gravity tractor" and make the comet/asteroid miss the earth target by pulling it away through gravitational pull of the gravity tractor.

I don't know how much they are prepared but that's the idea.

Bavaria · Jul 23, 2015

farkhina said:
Watu wengi tu waitwa aurora hata mie nimelipenda hili jina

Tuzae mtoto tumuite aurora

farkhina · Jul 23, 2015

Bavaria said:
Tuzae mtoto tumuite aurora

Tuzae? Mie na wewe? Seriously? Kwema lakini

mfungwa · Jul 23, 2015

Tokyo40 said:
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

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'Aurora' ni neno la kiitaliano na maana yake ni 'dawn' kwetu 'pambazuko'. Masaa ya asubuhi na mapema kabla ya jua halijachomoza ndio pambazuko i.e. Aurora.

mfungwa · Jul 23, 2015

Bavaria said:
Tuzae mtoto tumuite aurora

Aurora ni kiitaliano maana yake pambazuko, masaa kabla ya jua halijachomoza kiingereza 'dawn'. Wanatumia kuita watoto wa kike italy.

Tokyo40 · Jul 24, 2015

mfungwa said:
'Aurora' ni neno la kiitaliano na maana yake ni 'dawn' kwetu 'pambazuko'. Masaa ya asubuhi na mapema kabla ya jua halijachomoza ndio pambazuko i.e. Aurora.

Ahsante kwa maelezo.

Na asili yake ni Latin, maana hiyo hiyo.

Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese all have Latin Roots.

Tokyo40 · Jul 24, 2015

mfungwa said:
Aurora ni kiitaliano maana yake pambazuko, masaa kabla ya jua halijachomoza kiingereza 'dawn'. Wanatumia kuita watoto wa kike italy.

aurora bo·re·al·is
\-ˌbȯr-ē-ˈa-ləs\
noun
:an aurora that occurs in earth's northern hemisphere called also northern lights

ORIGIN

New Latin, literally, northern dawn

New Latin aurōra boreālis : Latin aurōra, dawn + Latin boreālis, northern.

First Use: 1717

source:I.word.com & thefreedictionary.com

Aurora Borealis : The Northern Lights

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