Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)
By: Adriana Zavala

They are many myths about the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621.The Lapps or the Saami people that were a closely related race of the Finns’ who lived in Lappland, in what is officially Northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway traditionally believed that the Aurora Borealis “were the energies of the souls of the departed.
When the fires blazed in the skies, people were to behave solemnly, and children were admonished to quiet down and be respectful of the fires. It was believed that whoever disrespected the fires incurred bad fortune, which could result in sickness and even death” The Lapps believed these fires to have magical effects; Lappish shaman drums often have runes illustrating the fires to connect their energy. The lights were believed to have a serene effect on arguments, and the time of the fires was beneficial to problem solving. The Lapps also had a belief that if you whistled under the Aurora Borealis, then the lights would take you away with them (1).

An American history on the Aurora Borealis took as an event. After the battle of Fredricksburg, the Aurora Borealis could be seen. The army took is it as God’s sign to show that he was on their side throughout the battle. It is very unusual to see the Aurora Borealis in Virginia (2).
The Aurora Borealis is seen in many ways. One as a diffuse glow or as “curtains” that just about extends in the east-west direction. They come from gigantic explosions on the sun, which sends streams of charged protons and electrons speeding towards Earth with a velocity of 200 million miles per hour. When these particles reach Earth’s magnetic field, they accelerate to about 134 million miles per hour then they are driven down towards the Polar Regions.
Aurora nature light displays in the sky are caused by the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth’s magnetic field. The collisions take place about 70 to 240 miles above Earth’s surface. The particles interact with the molecules and atoms of gas, generally oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. These interactions release energy in the form of heat and light. When enough collisions occur, people see them as the Aurora Borealis (3).
From time to time they, form “quiet arcs”; at others (“active aurora”), they grow and change continuously. Each “curtain” has numerous parallel rays, each aligned to the local direction of the magnetic field line, implicating that auroras are shaped by Earth’s magnetic field. “Indeed, satellites show electrons to be guided by magnetic field lines, spiraling around them while moving towards Earth” (2).
The magnetosphere is full of trapped plasma as the solar wind, a rarefied flow of hot plasma (gas of free electrons and positive ions), passes the Earth. The flow of plasma into the magnetosphere increases with increases in solar wind density and speed. “Some magnetospheric plasma travel down along the Earth's magnetic field lines and lose energy to the atmosphere in the auroral zones” (2). Magnetospheric electrons, which are hastened downward by field-aligned electric fields, are to blame for the bright aurora features. “The un-accelerated electrons and ions are responsible for the dim glow of the diffuse aurora” (2).

Coronal mass ejections are also responsible for the occurrence of the Aurora Borealis. “The ejected material is a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons, but may contain small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and even iron. It is associated with enormous changes and disturbances in the coronal magnetic field” (5). This process can cause the Aurora Borealis.
The Aurora Lights are related to the Polar Regions. They occur in the center of the magnetic north pole. This Auroral zone extends over northern Scandinavia, Island, the southern tip of Greenland and continuing over northern Canada, Alaska and along the northern coast of Siberia. The coasts of the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark lay where occurrence is greatest. The Northern Lights can be seen from regions both north and south of the auroral zone, but the probability of it decreasing when moving further away from the zone (4). Aurora Borealis is most intense at midnight until 3am within the wintertime in clear night skies.