Aurora Borealis tidbits
“… a barrage of solar radiation hitting and then bouncing around Earth’s magnetic field.”1
from California in 2004
If you are looking for a lot more detail, check out the links below, but so as not to bore your friends, here are just a couple quick tidbits:
- The name aurora borealis is Latin and translates loosely to something along the lines of “dawn” (aurora) and “north wind” (borealis). Aurora is also the Roman goddess of dawn.
- The spectacle can be seen farther south than usual this time around thanks to a “huge ejection of charged particles from the Sun”2 this past Tuesday.
Now you are armed with some information and if you read on, you can throw out words like “solar wind,” “magnetic fields,” and “equinoxes,” making you sound even smarter than you already are!
Read on:
Alaska.edu – Frequently Asked Questions about Aurora and Answers
BBC.co.uk – Why have the Northern Lights moved south?
(image above from: http://borealis2000.com/July2704Aurora.html)
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