Sharon Chisholm, age 11, of Charlotte, North Carolina, for her question:

How did the term Aurora Borealis originate?

In everyday language we call them the Northern Lights and the term, though accurate, does not do justice to their breathtaking beauty. The language of science borrowed more suitably descriptive terms from antiquity and used them to name both the Northern and Southern Lights. Both are auroras, named for the ancient Greek goddess of the morning. She was pictured rising from the eastern ocean, with her rosy pink fingers dripping pearly dew.. Around her spread the huge colorful halo of the sun's dawning light.     

The civilizations of antiquity personified other aspects of nature, picturing them with superhuman qualities. The wind from the northern mountains was Borealis, whose name later came to mean north and northern. The south wind was Australis. Our Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis are named for these three glamorous personifications from antiquity    representing the radiant goddess of the dawn, the north wind and the south wind.