Aurora

Atmospheric Optical Phenomena

An aurora is a natural light display in Earth's upper atmosphere, produced when charged particles from the Sun collide with atmospheric atoms. The collisions excite oxygen and nitrogen, causing light in colours including green, red, and purple. Auroras occur in bands around polar regions and can appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or flickering light. They are called the northern lights in the Arctic and southern lights in the Antarctic. Auroras also occur on other Solar System bodies, brown dwarfs, and comets.

Cause: Charged particles from the Sun colliding with atmospheric atoms
Arctic name: Northern lights or aurora borealis
Appearance: Curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers

Sources and credits

Article: Aurora (English Wikipedia)
Wikidata: Q40609
Text: Card text is adapted from the English Wikipedia article by an automated summary. Wikipedia content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for its contributors. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Article history and contributors
Illustration: By United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang. Public domain · File page on Wikimedia Commons
United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang, This image was released by the United States Air Force with the ID 050118-F-3488S-003 (next). This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing. العربية ∙ বাংলা ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ Bahaso Jambi ∙ Deutsch ∙ Deutsch (Sie-Form) ∙ English ∙ español ∙ euskara ∙ فارسی ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ Nederlands ∙ polski ∙ پښتو ∙ português ∙ русский ∙ slovenščina ∙ svenska ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/− http://www.af.mil/weekinphotos/wipgallery.asp?week=97&idx=9 (Full Image)
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