Executive summary by darmansjah
The aurora borealis
forms a 2,000
mile wide (3,219 km) oval over the North Pole.
ARTIC CIRCLE The northern lights, or aurora
borealis, forms in the rolling interior of the sun. the atoms that make up
solar gases are transformed into a thin stream of electrically charged
particles-protons and electrons. This stream, the solar wind, is both matter ad
energy. It continuously erupts from the sun. most of the solar wind sideswipes
the Earth’s magnetic shield, but some spirals down toward the planet’s north
and south magnetic poles, where it churns the oxygen and nitrogen in the
atmosphere. Shades of green, red, bright pink, blue, or violet appear depending
on how far from Earth the electrons and nitrogen molecules interact.
An Audience of One
Residents of Alsaka, such as this woman in Anchorage, know
that the best time to view the northern lights is during long midwinter nights,
when the sun is at “solar maximum”-the period of greatest activity in the solar
cycle.
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