Aurora Australis Essay

Have you ever wondered what those neon green lights are that appear on the cover of national geographic? It’s difficult to believe that those photos aren’t photo-shopped and they are a phenomenon of nature. These beauties are created by a mixture of magnetic and solar disturbances in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The fact that scientists to this day still haven’t completely explained this phenomenon is incredible. These lights are called Aurora. According to an article by N.S. Gill, the Aurora lights “were named by a French scientist Pierre Gassendi, in 1621. They were named Aurora for the goddess of the dawn, according to the Romans . . . (Gill)” When they occur at the North Pole they are called the Aurora Borealis, and at the South Pole they are called the Aurora Australis (How … work?). These lights have been studied for hundreds of years and scientists still haven’t been able to fully grasp this act of nature. According to HowStuffWorks.com, the colors that these lights give off is a something scientists have only recently figured-out. The …show more content…
They tend to occur at night between 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. But, those hours are specific to the Iceland area (Dombrowski). In an area closer to the Poles, Auroras have been seen during the day. But those areas are harder to predict the time of occurrence for the reason that they occur so often. The main reason the Aurora is unpredictable in many areas is for the reason that the rotation of the sun and the activity of the solar winds on earth. The sun fully rotates every 27 days, for the sun to produce electrons and protons strong enough to be seen only happens once every 27 days. Alongside from the sun, the solar wind occurring has to be active enough for the winds to be seen. Predicting when the winds will be strong enough, while also predicting when the sun will produce strong enough protons and electrons is impossible for the technology we have today