Aurora

Aurora


Aurora, which is one of the Seven Natural Wonders, is a beautiful display of green, blue and red lights in the higher latitudes near Poles. These occur when atoms present in the magnetosphere are excited and ionized because of solar wind. These excited particles are then transported towards the poles due to the effect of magnetic pull. When these particles collide with the atoms present in the atmosphere, electromagnetic waves of different bands are produced depending on the energy of the charged atoms.

An aurora is mainly of two types, first one of which is diffuse Aurora. This one is mostly not visible to the naked eyes even in a dark night. It is extended all over the aurora zone and depicts the extent of aurora zone. The second one is the discrete aurora. It occurs within the diffuse zone and it is visible to naked eyes. Sometimes it is so bright that a person can even read on a dark night. Though, the auroras occur round the year, but, they are only visible during the nights, since they are not as bright as sunlight. Mostly the discrete auroras are green in color, but sometimes, it displays red color too. An aurora may vanish within seconds or even last for hours. 


Mostly aurora zones lie within 30 to 60 latitude of geographical pole or 100 to 200 latitude of geomagnetic pole. But they also extend toward lower latitudes at the time of geomagnetic storms.

The name ‘Aurora’ has been given to it on the name of the Roman Goddess of Dawn. Although, the features and conditions of Aurora in North andSouth poles are the same yet, they are known with different names. In North Pole, it is known as Aurora Borealis, which comes from the Greek name ‘Boreas’ for northern winds. In South Pole it is known as ‘Aurora Australis’. Auroras are most often at the time of Equinoxes. These beautiful lights are visible from North America and Australia in South and Canada, Greenland and Russia in North.

 Credits: Image Source- Google Images

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