When that wind slams into Earth's ionosphere, or upper atmosphere, the aurora is born. (Image credit: NASA) What are the northern lights?Īt any given moment, the sun is ejecting charged particles from its corona, or upper atmosphere, creating what's called the solar wind. A portion of the space station's solar array is visible in the top left corner of the image. At the time this photo was taken, the space station was orbiting about 258 miles (415 kilometers) above Russia and the Ukraine. The theory would eventually prove correct, but not until long after Birkeland's 1917 death.Ī lime-green aurora glows above Earth's city lights in this view from the International Space Station. Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland proposed that electrons emitted from sunspots produced the atmospheric lights after being guided toward the poles by Earth's magnetic field. The science behind the northern lights wasn't theorized until the turn of the 20th century. also notes the aurora, according to NASA. A royal astronomer under Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar II inscribed his report of the phenomenon on a tablet dated to 567 B.C., for example, while a Chinese report from 193 B.C. One North American Inuit legend suggests that the northern lights are spirits playing ball with a walrus head, while the Vikings thought the phenomenon was light reflecting off the armor of the Valkyrie, the supernatural maidens who brought warriors into the afterlife.Įarly astronomers also mentioned the northern lights in their records. Since that time, civilizations around the world have marveled at the celestial phenomenon, ascribing all sorts of origin myths to the dancing lights.
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