A post submitted by 'NEW' CGI member ScienceTruth.
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The Winnemucca Institute for Advanced Studies presents:
Causes of the Northern Lights
The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are nighttime glowing; ribbons, curtains, bands, streamers, and sometimes circles or blotches of various colors in the far northern latitudes, often resembling high altitude clouds. The southern hemisphere has similar nighttime light shows, called Aurora Australis or the Southern Lights. Both Northern and Southern Lights are referred to as Aurora Polaris, and they can span the wavelengths of ; infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and vary in intensity, duration, and also their extent across the sky. They can last a few minutes or several days. Aurora Polaris events occur equally during the day, but daytime sunlight makes them unobservable to our eyes.
Our earthly Aurora Polaris Lights are a delayed reaction to energetic activity on the Sun. Strong magnetic events continually take place on the surface of the Sun and in its higher elevation plasma atmosphere, with electrons and ions being accelerated to high energies. When these particles' accelerated energy level is sufficient to catapult them past the Sun's surrounding Electric Double Layer (DL) field and into its further surrounding Electric Field, they can escape from the Sun to become what Mainstream science calls the Solar Wind. The Sun's close surrounding electric DL field is what keeps all of the lesser energized particles from escaping (positive against positive -repel each other). This DL also helps in enabling the surface of the Sun to remain so hot and remember: 'electron temperature' is not the same as 'thermal temperature'.
The accelerated ionized atoms comprising the Solar Wind are at sufficiently high energies to have lost some or all of their electrons. This makes them a Plasma, an ionized form of atomic matter missing one or more electrons from its outer electron shell or shells. As electrons have a negative electric charge, any loss of electrons results in the atom now having a more positive overall electric charge than usual. To make a plasma, heat it up ! The Sun's surrounding Electric DL has a high positive charge and this keeps the lesser positively charged ions contained and closer to the Sun's surface, however, those that do manage to escape, now enter an environment where the Sun's surrounding Electric Field is becoming less and less positive the further away you go, or it can be said to be becoming more and more negative in charge, which to a positively charged ion, attracts them more and more strongly. Thus, when a highly positive plasma ion is ejected away from the Sun, or 'escapes' thru a Coronal Hole in the 'atmosphere', it finds itself with an increasingly 'more negative' electric field in front of it. The result is the ion will experience an increasing acceleration towards the more negative electric field strength in front of it. This is why the 'Solar Wind' (a notoriously inaccurate label for several reasons) is going faster and faster the further away from the Sun it goes ! (this action is the opposite to what happens when something receives an initial acceleration and then proceeds to 'coast', like a bullet 'fired from a gun', or the magnetic kick from a magnetic reconnection event, as the Mainstream contends.)
The Solar Wind doesn't 'slow down' as it departs from the Sun, as one would expect from something 'shot from a gun', or from a one-time acceleration in a local magnetic field at the solar surface or in the atmosphere of the Sun, like Mainstream solar scientists describe it as happening. The Solar Wind actually 'speeds up' ! (which Mainstream acknowledges, but ignores the causes thereof). This Solar Wind behavior is indicative proof that the ionized plasma atoms of the Solar Wind are being accelerated by a vast electric field that surrounds the Sun. Space probes sent to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have all measured the speed of the Solar Wind at these locations, and in all cases the speed of the Solar Wind is higher at a further distance from the Sun. Unfortunately Mainstream Astrophysics is remaining steadfastly and willfully ignorant of the Sun's Electric Field theory explanation for this Solar Wind acceleration behavior, and instead believes in their totally erroneous concept of Magnetic Reconnection as the energy source for the initial 'kick' that starts the Solar Wind near the Sun's surface and in its higher plasma atmosphere, from which it then goes on its journey away from the Sun.
The Solar Wind is ejected, or escapes, from the Sun primarily in equatorial latitudes, and it does so in all directions of the compass around the solar equator, so it is only when a burst of Solar Wind is directed towards the Earth that our Aurora Polaris events will occur. Because plasma ions are electrically charged particles, they are influenced by the Earth's magnetic field, which attracts them and organizes them along the magnetic field-strengths (field 'lines' in Mainstream-speak) where they 'pile up'. Once these field-strength areas are overloaded with more ions than they can contain, and still more are arriving, the ions begin 'spilling out' at the Earth's north and south magnetic poles. The more 'overloaded' the magnetic field, the further away from the magnetic poles the ions will 'spill'. Once every hundred years or so, Auroras can be seen in Tropical Latitudes, though normally Auroras occur within, or close to, the Arctic Circle or Antarctic Circle's distance from the pole.
When the Sun's Solar Wind's magnetically captured ions begin to spill out above the Earth's polar regions, they descend and interact with the gasses in the Earth's upper atmosphere, and this energetic interaction is what causes the Polar Auroras! As these 'hot' ions spill and collide with atmospheric gasses, it heats the atmospheric atoms and causes them to lose an electron. As these arriving 'hot' ions then cool by collision with Earth's atmosphere, they are now willing to accept any returning 'hot' electron. The 'hot' electron cools when recombining with an ionized atom, and in doing so it releases its 'excess' energy in the form of a photon, a 'particle' or wavelength of light energy. Electrons emit excess energy at a very specific wavelength depending on what kind of ion atom they are recombining with. Thus, the ion atom plays an important role in this 'recombination' 'electron emission' wavelength spectra event. Thus the differing colors in the Auroras are due to differing types of atoms undergoing electron recombination, or that atom's return to its preferred 'ground state'. The color of an Aurora can also indicate at what altitude, and what atmospheric gasses are being interacted with (mainly oxygen and nitrogen). Red generally indicates a higher altitude than Green. Auroras occur above 50 miles high, or above 80 km.
Red: At the highest altitudes; 150 to 60 miles, or 250 km to 100 km, excited atomic oxygen emits Red (630.0 nm); at this high altitude a low concentration of atoms coupled with the lower sensitivity of our eyes to this wavelength, makes this color visible only under certain circumstances, specifically during/after the most intense of solar activities. The rare amount of oxygen atoms and their sparse population at very high altitude is responsible for the faint appearance of these topmost parts of the auroral 'curtains'.
Green: At lower altitudes the more frequent molecular kinetic collisions suppress the Red mode, and the Green mode (557.7 nm) of emission dominates; with a fairly high concentration of atomic oxygen and our higher eye sensitivity in the Green portion of the EM spectrum, this makes Green auroras the most commonly observed auroras. The excited molecular nitrogen (mono-atomic nitrogen being rare due to the high stability of the di-atomic N2 molecule) plays its role here as well, as it can transfer energy by kinetic collision to an oxygen atom, which then radiates in the Green wavelength. (Red and Green can also mix together to make Pink or Yellow hues.) The rapid decrease in the concentration of atomic oxygen below about 60 miles or 100 km is responsible for the abrupt end to the bottom parts of the Red auroral curtains.
Yellow and Pink: these are a mix of Red and Green, or of Red and Blue, electron emission colors.
Blue: At yet lower altitudes mono-atomic oxygen is not common anymore, and ionized molecular nitrogen takes over the emission spectra; it radiates at a large number of wavelengths in both the Red and Blue portions of the spectrum, with Blue (428 nm) being dominant. Blue, Indigo and Violet emissions are typically at the bottom of the curtains, these only show up during the highest levels of solar activity and their resulting very excessive ion overload of the Earth's magnetic field.
Oxygen electron emissions: Green or Orange-Red, depending on the amount of energy absorbed.
Nitrogen electron emissions: Blue or Red; Blue if the atom regains an electron after it has been ionized, Red if returning to the ground state from an 'excited' state. Excitation is where an electron moves to a higher energy-level electron 'shell', but stays with the atom. The atom is termed 'excited', but is not yet ionized, as it still retains this outer electron. When the atom returns to its preferred 'ground state' it loses its 'excess energy' from the 'excited' state by emitting at a specific wavelength of Red light, which is different from the Blue wavelength during a 'recombination' event. It does get a bit complicated due to differing events taking place simultaneously, and the different wavelengths associated with each of those 'events', which is the reason why Auroral activity can change its colors so rapidly at various times, while at other times the color stays quite steady.
Oxygen unusually takes the 'allowable' pathway in terms of its 'return' to 'ground state': Oxygen can take three-quarters of a second before emitting its 'allowable' Green light, and up to two minutes before emitting in the 'forbidden' pathway of Red light. Collisions with other atoms or molecules absorb the excitation energy and prevent any emission at all by absorbing the 'excess' energy and returning the atom to its 'ground state' (this is where it prefers to reside, electrically speaking). Because the very top of the atmosphere has a higher percentage of oxygen, which is extremely sparsely distributed, such kinetic collisions are very rare and allow enough time for oxygen to emit in the 'forbidden' Red spectra wavelength. Molecular collisions become much more frequent progressing downward in the atmosphere, so much that the 'forbidden' Red emissions do not have the time to happen, and eventually even the 'allowable' pathway of Green light emissions are prevented, and 'everybody' returns to 'normal' and no auroral emissions take place at all.
This is mainly why there is a color differential with altitude. At the highest altitude oxygen Red dominates, then lower -oxygen Green and nitrogen Blue/Red are most prevalent, and finally nitrogen Blue/Red when collisions prevent oxygen from emitting at all. The most common of all auroras is Green; next is Pink, a mixture of Green and Red; followed by pure Red; then Yellow, a mixture of Red and Green; and finally pure Blue.
Since the Solar Wind is always bathing the Earth with some particles, there are always upper atmospheric reactions taking place. It is only when the Solar Wind is particularly intense or a large solar flare has occurred that the over-spilling reaction is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye at night. During intense solar activity, like a Coronal Mass Ejection, huge quantities of solar particles are thrown out, or 'escape' from the Sun, totally overwhelming Earth's magnetic field and causing intense Auroras. These ejected plasma clouds travel through space with speeds varying from 300 to 1500 kilometers per second. But even with these speeds of 700,000 to 3 million mph, it usually takes them 1.3 to 5.5 days to reach our planet Earth and make Auroras. Two to three days is the usual time to reach Earth, so if you watch a website that shows Solar activity and Coronal Hole activity, you will know how our weather will be changing in a couple of days ! and you won't need the TV weather any more !! Try this website to monitor what our Sun is doing !!! - https://www.solarham.com/
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Information provided herein by the Winnemucca Institute for Advanced Studies is for educational purposes. Our ‘Man on the Street Series’ of informative Science Papers is designed to provide a semi-technical answer to everyday experiences.
