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What causes the Northern and Southern Lights? The famous Northern and Southern Lights -- Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis for those Latin lovers among us -- are caused by high- energy particles from the Sun cascading down on Earth.
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Aurorae, glowing gases that create the northern and southern lights, are common on Jupiter because energetic charged particles needed to excite the gases are always trapped in Jupiter's magnetosphere.
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The aurora, the Northern and Southern Lights, are generated by collisions between charged particles from space and gases in Earth's atmosphere.
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Also called the northern lights (or southern lights in the southern hemisphere). The aurora is a shimmering curtain of green and/or red light seen toward the north (in the northern hemisphere).
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Also known as the southern lights, this is an atmospheric phenomenon that displays a diffuse glow in the sky in the southern hemisphere. It is caused by charged particles from the Sun as they interact with the Earth's magnetic field.
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Above the north and south poles, the magnetic field has less effect and the particles can get low enough to interact with the atmosphere, where they create aurorae (northern or southern lights) visible from latitudes near the poles.
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Shuttles and the Space Station fly in paths that take them to the top and the bottom of the Earth in one orbit. They are able to see the Northern and the Southern Lights in one trip. Most people never see them at all.
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aurora -- the light emitted by atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere. This light is a result of magnetic disturbances and appears to us as the northern or southern lights.
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The composition of this high-speed solar wind may vary, but it always streams away from the Sun. The solar wind is responsible for the Northern and Southern Lights on Earth and causes the tails of comets to point away from the Sun.
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On occasion these more powerful flares can even cause satellites on orbiting the Earth to malfunction. They can also interact with the Earth's magnetic field to create impressive and beautiful light shows known as the Northern and Southern lights.
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See also: Light, Earth, Sun, Solar, Aurora
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