Aurora Borealis Research Paper

The Northern lights are also known as Aurora borealis or Aurora australis. The name Aurora borealis originated from the north; this means “dawn of the north” whereas the name Aurora australis originated from the south; this means “dawn of the south”. A man named Pierre Gassendi named the Aurora borealis. The auroras have been around since ancient times.
The Northern lights have many spectacular colors as they spread across the sky, but few know what really makes up this beautiful sight. The Aurora is formed by collisions between gaseous particles in our atmosphere, and charged particles from the sun’s atmosphere. As these charged particles "excite" gases in our atmosphere, they make them glow, just like how gas in a fluorescent tube glows. The different colors of the lights are because of the different gas particles. The most frequent color shown would be a pale yellowish-green this color comes from the oxygen molecules that are about 60 miles above the earth’s surface. The rare all-red aurora has been produced by …show more content…
Some legends say that they will come down and grab your children. The Wisconsin Menominee Native Americans saw the lights as torches that were used by benevolent giants when they would spear fish at night. The fishermen in northern Sweden took the lights as a good luck sign, believing they were reflecting on large schools of herring in nearby fishing locations. If you whistled at the aurora, some natives believed that it would sweep down and carry you away. When you clapped your hands, however, it would cause the lights to recede, which would keep you safe. In northern Scandinavia, the Sami people would hide indoors throughout the light show. For those people who were close enough to hear, the aurora made a small sound that somewhat sounded like an