Have you ever wondered what causes the Northern lights? They illuminate the horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red. This natural light display happens when charged particles are directed by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere. It all starts at the sun when a geomagnetic storm is carried by the solar winds towards Earth, which takes about 18 hours. There is also Aurora at the South Pole which is called the Aurora Australis. The Cree people called the Northern lights the Dance of the Spirits.

In class we watched a video produced by the Department of Physics at the University of Oslo. It explains how particles that originate deep inside the sun creates the Northern lights on our planet.