The Northern Lights
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| Aurora Borealis: The Northern Lights |
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| Before much was known about the Aurora Borealis people came to their own conlcusions as to it's causes. There are many interesting legends and myths ascoicated with the lights such as the Inuits in Greenland and Northern Canada who believed they were caused by the gods playing soccer with a walrus skull. |
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| The Northern Lights are caused by a combination of four factors. Sun spots, solar wind, solar flare and Van Allen belts. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Northern Lights start first as Sun Spots. The sun spots look black, and are not the same temperature as the rest of the sun. Sun spots are a little cooler than the rest of the sun. The sun spots opperate in an eleven year cycle. Sun spots produce the solar flares that produce solar wind. Solar flares are on an eleven year cycle. Durring years in which they are active the lights are much brighter, and more easily visible. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Solar wind is made of electrons and protons. Solar wind is realeased from the sun and travels through space towards the earth. When the solar wind gets closer to the earth at one point it becomes in contact with the magnetic field of the earth. The magnetic field forces the solar wind to go towards the poles of the earth. The path the solar wind takes from the magnetic field to the poles is called the Van Allen Belt. After traveling along the Van Allen Belt the solar wind comes in contact with the atmosphere. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The last component of the Northern Lights is the reaction of the solar wind with the atmosphere. As the solar wind collides with the atmosphere the electrons of the solar wind rise to an excited state releases photons to create light. The light is it's unusal color because of it's reaction with nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. The nitrogen causes the light to turn a pink shade. The oxygen causes a green shade. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ***There are suppost to be pictures but they would not load... sorry.... I'll get them up as soon as I can. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||