How do the Northern Lights appear?
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The Aurora
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The Science of the Northern Lights
- How do the Northern Lights appear?
The Aurora Borealis originates some 93,000,000 miles away on the surface of the Sun with a massive explosion of electromagnetic matter called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). CME’s usually emanate from the more active areas of the Sun’s surface and they throw a stream of electronically charged solar particles known as Solar Wind into the vastness of space. It is when these particles are directed towards the Earth that we can see the Northern or Southern Lights three or four nights later.
Coronal Mass Ejection
Solar Wind
(Electronically charged particles)
Incoming particles react
with atoms and molecules
and become 'excited'
Atoms and molecules
release light as
they calm down
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