Northern Lights Research Paper

When the northern lights come out, it sometimes appears as if the sky is on fire. There is an eerie connection between the Sun and our planet’s atmosphere that can sometimes cause the sky to unexpectedly glow with shades of red, yellow, purple and green; an atmospheric phenomenon called the northern lights or Aurora Borealis. The Sun is constantly spraying the solar system with millions of tons of charged particles each minute. The stream of charged particles from the Sun, or solar wind, consists mostly of electrons and protons. Sometimes the Sun is very energetic and violently ejects the particles in a solar flare or coronal mass ejection (CME). In the simplest explanation, aurorae are produced when these charged particles collide with Earth’s magnetic field and spiral down along magnetic field lines where their energy interacts with gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The result causes the gases at various levels in the atmosphere to glow or give off light. …show more content…
All you need is a camera that has a bulb setting (look for a B on the shutter speed dial), a sturdy tripod, and a remote shutter release. A remote shutter release is a way to trigger your camera shutter without having to touch the camera. In the earlier days of manual film cameras, it was generally referred to as a cable release. If you have to touch your camera to open and close the camera shutter by pressing and releasing the shutter button, then there is the risk of blurring the image. A camera that has a timer to start and stop the exposure is