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What are northern lights and how do they occur?

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The aurora borealis, or northern lights, are an ethereal display of colored lights shimmering across the night sky. What causes them? ... When the charged particles from the sun strike atoms and molecules in Earth's atmosphere, they excite those atoms, causing them to light up. read more

The auroras generally occur along the "auroral ovals," which center on the magnetic poles (not the geographic poles) and roughly correspond with the Arctic and Antarctic circles. There are times, though, when the lights are farther south, usually when there are a lot of sunspots. read more

The Northern Lights, as the name suggests, are especially related to the polar regions. They occur most frequently in a belt of radius 2500 km centered on the magnetic north pole. This so-called auroral zone extends over northern Scandinavia, Island, the southern tip of Greenland and continuing over northern Canada, Alaska and along the northern coast of Siberia. read more

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Solar storm could disrupt GPS, cause Northern Lights show ...
Source: freep.com

Further Research

The Northern Lights
geo.phys.uit.no

What are the Northern Lights?
guidetoiceland.is