Space

Very Beautiful Picture of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) Seen from Space

It's not every day that one gets the chance to look at the aurora from outer space

By Lucian Dorneanu, Science Editor

25th of June 2007, 09:59 GMT

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The aurora is a bright glow observed in the night sky, usually in the polar areas of Earth, as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction. In northern latitudes, it is known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis - the Latin word for "of the South" - has similar properties.

If you've been

lucky enough to see the Aurora Borealis or the Aurora Australis, you know it's a truly impressive sight. Seeing the lights dancing against the sky is a memorable experience, which can be lived only in a ring-shaped region of about 1560 miles (2500 km) around the magnetic poles of the Earth, not its geographic one.

Unfortunately, their beauty can also affect us in a negative way, because auroras are known to disturb satellites, electrical grids, and even interrupt GPS signals. Nevertheless, this picture of the aurora taken from outer space is truly amazing.

Every 11 years, the Sun experiences a period of massive solar storms, when violent solar flares and vast explosions known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) have the strongest manifestations of the entire cycle.

When the ejections reach the Earth as an ICME (Interplanetary CME), they may disrupt the Earth's magnetosphere, compressing it on the dayside and extending the nightside tail. When the magnetosphere reconnects on the nightside, it creates trillions of watts of power which is directed back towards the Earth's upper atmosphere.

The next solar storm cycle will start next March and will have the peak in late 2011 and mid-2012, although so far, scientists can't fully predict the behavior of these cosmic storms, or when exactly they are going to happen, even though many government and private institutions have demanded a forecast of the Sun's activity during the storm cycle to help them prevent damage to their infrastructures and business activities.

TAGS:

aurora | borealis | magnetosphere | sun | storm

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