Aurora

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An aurora
An aurora
The Roman goddess of dawn is at Aurora (mythology)

Aurora, also known as Northern lights, is like fire that sometimes comes to the sky at the cold areas of Earth.

An aurora can happen in the Arctic, around the North Pole (Aurora borealis - Dawn of the North) or in the Antarctic around the South Pole (Aurora australis - Dawn of the South). An aurora can often be seen for a long way, many hundreds of kilometers or miles.

Auroras can only be seen at night because their light is not as strong as the light of day. However they can happen during the day as well.

Aurora happens when the Sun sends off stuff we call particles to the empty space. These particles are charged, which means they have a lots of electricity. These particles flying in space is called "solar wind". Sometimes solar wind hits Earth. Earth has a protection shield of energy around it. This is called the "magnetic field". The magnetic field wards off solar wind. At the cold area (polar area) magnetic field is less powerful, and it can not protect Earth from the solar wind. There the particles of solar wind hits the particles in air. In this hit the electricity gets away and we see that as light.

Sami people say Aurora is a tail of a Fox.