💾 Archived View for gluonspace.com › gemlog › the_beautiful_auroras.gmi captured on 2023-07-10 at 13:26:55. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-03-01)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
When the solar wind comprising charged particles like electrons and protons released from the Sun reaches the atmosphere, the Earth's magnetic field captures those particles and further accelerates them. As these electrons and protons hit oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the ionosphere, the energy is released in the form of photons.
Some of these photons are well within the visible spectrum, producing lights mainly in the green, blue and red wavelengths. We call them auroras, also known as the northern and southern lights, probably the most beautiful show on Earth.