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Scientists find trigger for Northern Lights

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Scientists say they have discovered what makes the northern lights dance.

Researchers working on a NASA mission to understand the interplay of magnetic fields and charged particles blown outward from the Sun have identified the trigger for the colorful electrical storms in the polar regions. They hope this is a step in developing reliable forecasts of geomagnetic storms that can disrupt satellites in orbit and power grids on the ground.

The findings appeared in an article published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science.

Scientists have long known that the dancing auroras of color known as the northern and southern lights are generated by charged particles flying from the Sun and interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field, which is then pulled into a windsock shape by the solar wind.

Turbulent storms on the Sun generate extremely bright auroral displays, but even in quieter times, smaller events known as substorms still generate the lights.

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More and an interesting little video at link.
Vierotchka

29 responses // Scientists find trigger for Northern Lights

  • This is a beautiful image.
    joshuaheller
  • This is scary beautiful.
    Neghie
  • Gotta love nature. There's really nothing better.
    torybart
  • Didnt we figure this out long ago? Or did we have to spend the 100 million grant to figure it out and who cares, living where I do you see then once and awhile.
    regularrf
    2 responses to this
  • I'd be the life of the party with a pair of solar windsocks.
    Super cool post.
    God has always been my favorite artist.
    huntre
  • Beautiful, one of the things I hope to get to see in my lifetime.
    Becky6378
  • watch this comment being used here, here, here, here, here, and here
    So it's like call and response between the sun and earth...very cool.
    24French
  • I've always wanted to see such lights.
    J_Jammer
    1 response to this
  • sexy
    Denica_Cassandra
  • I'm confused: I can't see the "trigger" referred to in the title anywhere in the summarry, although I haven't loked in the actual article yet it'd be good to have it here.
    rwylie
  • thank you denica, i know.

    you are sexy too!!
    phukna
    1 response to this
  • I had figured out for myself that the reason you see "dancing" is that the material from the sun comes at us like splashes of paint. Nothing dances. it is simply how the ions land in our upper atmosphere/stratosphere. First here, then there! I want to think that the magnetic bursts are a result of those impacts on us/ our magnetic envelope. Am I wrong?
    SigG
  • @rwylie:

    the word 'trigger' may be somewhat misleading...

    NASA's THEMIS mission is the unit that is investigating the auroras and they discovered this year that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power the substorms (i.e. sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis; the Northern Lights).

    Specificially, it's magnetic reconnection, a common process that occurs throughout the universe when stressed magnetic field lines suddenly "snap" to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far.

    "As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth’s magnetic field lines stretch far out into space. Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth’s atmosphere,” said David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles.”

    The THEMIS team’s findings appear online July 24 in Science Express and August 14 in the journal Science.

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/themis...
    shampton
  • It's beautiful.
    jimenagamio
  • there is nothing better absolutely right.
    funksoulgurlll
  • What they've really been using HAARP for...
    Dmitri_Molotov
  • watch this comment being used here, here and here
    Can you imagine all the things that exist that we don't even know about?
    damnneargenius
  • http://current.com/items/89135142_scientists_find_the_t...
    I posted this 20 hours ago.
    Bigdog_mike
  • Is it because of the aliens?!?
    ivxx
  • Yeah I love Northern Lights....
    Owwmykneecap
  • I will studiously NOT read this article. I refuse. I don't care what 'officially' makes the Northen Lights dance, and I don't want to know. I reckon it's just plain magic, and bloody beautiful magic at that. That's enough for me.
    LindseyIndigo
  • Wow, I knew magnetism had something to do with it. But why does it make those colors? Why isn't it just one?
    Xomeron
  • "The snapping of magnetic fields occurred first, followed by a burst of auroras."
    as i understand, this is just like the twisting of the sun's thermomagnetic layers..
    scabbio
  • @xomeron: Different gases in the upper atmosphere cause different colors. it's mostly a mix of oxygen and nitrogen.

    Atomic oxygen causes red and green.
    Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen ions make low level red and very high blue/violet aurorae.
    neutral nitrogen produces the red and purple color with rippled edges and ionic nitrogen gives off a light blue tint.
    The color we see with our eyes, is the real-time electrical excitement of those elements (instantaneous, fluid-like light) in the upper atmosphere (above 80km), charged by the collision of particles from Earth's magnetosphere, mostly electrons but also protons and heavier particles. ...which coincidentally are caused by the snapping back that @scabbio mentions and that we're seeing in the news recently.
    shampton
  • I have always found the northern lights fascinating. They have been a source of inspiration to millions of people.
    jubal

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