Louise Parlato age 13, Brooklyn, NY

What is the aurora borealis?

The radiant aurora was named for the Roman goddess of the morning* though its light does not come from the east. Nor do its pastel colors have the same cause as the colors of dawn and sunset. The breathtaking auroras shimmer forth from zones near the earths north and south magnetic poles. They are most vivid in high latitudes. There the glimmering colors may fill most of the sky and give enough light to reed byi The size and brilliance fades towards the equator, though auroras have been seen as far south as New Orleans,

The northern lights are called aurora borealis. Boreas was the Greek and Roman god of the north wind. The lights which fan out from the South magnetic pole are called aurora australis, which means southern dawn

The colors of dawn and sunset are caused by sunbeams passing through the dusty air. The aurora colors are caused by tiny electrical particles from the sun. These high speed midgets bombard the air between 60 and 600 miles above the ground. Up there, the air thins out and becomes rare. Ultra violet rays from the sun do strange things to the gas particles. Oxygen, whose atoms usually team up in twoss is often separated into single atoms. There are single atoms of nitrogen and other lonely atoms in the thin, rarified atmosphere high above the ground.

This thin air acts very much like the neon in an electric light tube. The air has been piped out of the electric tube and replaced with a very small amount of neon gas. The switch turns on an electric current which leaps through the tube of thin gas. The gas particles are jostled and set glowing with activity. The switch that lights up the aurora is thought to be from sunspots, those huge magnetic storms on the face of the sun. The best auroras begin a few days after such a solar storm.

The electric particles from the sun may be traveling hundreds and maybe thousands of miles a second when they strike the thin upper air, They crash into the gassy particle and set them glowing with,"activity. Experts are able to tell which gases are producing the radiant colors. For each gas glows with its own color.

The green yellow light of the aurora is caused when the oxygen atoms are jostled. Some of the reds are also caused by oxygen: Other red tones are caused by nitrogen gas in the higher atmosphere.

Aurora colors are soft and delicate, The brightest stars can be seen through them. The display is never still and takes various forms. Sometime we see only a glimmering patch of pale light. Sometimes a sunburst of rose and gold darts shimmering fingers over the sky. A bright aurora can always be photographed,

The most beautiful aurora effects are like waving curtains, Deep folds of graceful drapery seem to hang down from the sky towards the earth, The curtains may glow with delicate pastels of green  yellow, violet  grey and blues Often, this heavenly drapery is green‑yellow bordered in red.