Episode 7: Aurora Borealis, Galileo coined the term "aurora borealis". aurora borealis comes from greek "aurora" meaning "sunrise," and "boreas" meaning "wind," the Greeks believed Aurora to be the sister of Helios and Selene. Helios was the sun. Selene was the moon. Other names include Northern lights, Southern lights, Rory, Ro, Orie, Dawn. Norther Lights can be seen at Grotta Lighthouse Iceland, Tromso Norway, Churchill Canada, Aurora Sky Station Sweden, Nuuk Greenland, Lapland northern Finland, Fairbanks Alaska. Southern lights can be seen at Eaglehawk Neck Australia, South Georgia Island, Cradle Mountain Australia, Stewart Island New Zealand, Ushuaia Argentina. Auroras occur when charged particles (electrons and protons) collide with gases in Earth's upper or lower atmosphere. Those collisions produce tiny flashes that fill the sky with colourful light. As billions of flashes occur in sequence, the auroras appear to move or " dance " in the sky. When the solar wind reaches Earth it sends a flurry of charged particles into Earth's magnetic field lines, towards the poles. The interaction of these particles with Earth's atmosphere can produce glowing aurora displays above polar regions as all these flashes occur in a sequence the scotts thought that merry dancers were dancing causing the lights. My favorite place to see aurora in fairbanks is creamers field it is quite dark but not as good as chena river. And if you go to fairbanks try and pick the day when the kp index is 4 or more this is so the aurora can be visible to the naked eye. Forecast and Webcam link for Alaska - https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast . Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, solar wind (charged particles flowing from the Sun) interacts with planetary magnetic fields to create auroras. On Mars and Venus, auroras come from solar wind interacting with the atmosphere. The aurora in the sky have occurred since the dawn of our planet. Dinosaurs walked under them, just as we do today.
