The Northern Lights

The Northern Lights have always fascinated me. I mean look at this


how could you look at this and not be amazed?


I had always thought the northern lights were part of some upper atmosphere shenanigans going on closer to the north pole, but i was wrong. I was reading The Planets by Brian Cox really fun read and i just found out how the northern lights form and thought it'd be fascinating if i did a write-up on how they form.


The Sun is a really hot star (shocker), it emits a stream of charged particles from its corona(it's outersphere) called The Solar Wind, thrown towards space and eventually escapes at a speed of 800 km/s.
When this wind reaches Earth, thanks to the magnetic field of our planet, it distorts and dances along the field and sometimes its pushed down towards and interacts with the atoms and molecules of the Earth's surface in the thermosphere.


This sometimes, clashes with electrically charged molecules and forms the aurora which we call The Northern Lights, and at the right time and place .i.e usually near the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, it can be seen with a naked eye appearing as curtains of light. It's truly a fascinating process and it has always been a dream of mine to witness the lights in person.


I will put up some photos once I do.