Archive for the ‘satellites’ tag

Why Auroras Dance #

July 24th, 2008 | In Worth Knowing 

Scientists figured out why the Northern Lights flitter around:

The satellites confirmed that the storm was caused by a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection in which solar energy stretches the Earth’s magnetic field lines until they reach their limits and snap back into equilibrium. Like an earthquake in the sky, this releases enormous amounts of energy, and charged particles go flying into the atmosphere.