Auroras, are they real? I don't get how they work..

Question

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/alaska/images/s/alaska-aurora-borealis.jpg

Answer 1

Can you not see the picture? Of course they are real. When making an aurora, what happens is that energetic electrically charged particles (mostly electrons) accelerate along the magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with gas atoms, causing the atoms to give off light. The way the aurora works is a lot like a neon sign, except that in the aurora, the conducting gas is in the ionosphere, instead of a glass tube, and the current travels along magnetic field lines instead of copper wires.  

Answer 2

Yes, they are real, check this out http://www.discover-southern-ontario.com...

Answer 3

Yes, they are real! Haven't you seen them on TV before? Particles coming from the Sun ionize the gases in the Earth's atmosphere which are the attracted the poles, that's why they typically appear in the regions which are close to the arctic circle!

Answer 4

Yes they are real.  They are radiation and microwaves from the sun hitting the Earth's atmosphere and reacting to create a colorful display.

Answer 5

Yes, they are real, but usually only visible in northern areas for the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) and in the southern hemisphere, far southern areas  for the Aurora Australis.

"The short answer to how the aurora happens is that energetic electrically charged particles (mostly electrons) accelerate along the magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with gas atoms, causing the atoms to give off light. But why does that happen? To find the answer, we must look further away, to the Sun. The spectacular, "great" auroras in "What do they look like?" are powered by what is called the solar wind.

The Sun also has an atmosphere and a magnetic field that extend into space. The Sun's atmosphere is made of hydrogen, which is itself made of subatomic particles: protons and electrons. These particles are constantly boiling off the Sun and streaming outward at very high speeds.  Together, the Sun's magnetic field and particles are called the "solar wind."

So we have the Earth's magnetosphere, with the solar wind squeezing the magnetosphere and charged particles everywhere in the field. Solar particles are always entering the tail of the magnetosphere from the solar wind and moving toward the Sun. Now and then, when conditions are right, the build-up of pressure from the solar wind creates an electric voltage between the magnetotail and the poles, like the voltage between the two terminals of a battery. It can reach about 10,000 volts!

The voltage pushes electrons (which are very light) toward the magnetic poles, accelerating them to high speeds, much like the electrons in a TV picture tube that accelerate to hit the screen. They zoom along the field lines towards the ground to the north and south, until huge numbers of electrons are pushed down into the upper layer of the atmosphere, called the ionosphere.

In the ionosphere, the speeding electrons collide violently with gas atoms. This gives the gas atoms energy, which causes them to release both light and more electrons. In this way, the gases of the ionosphere glow and conduct flowing electric currents into and out of the polar region. The electrons flowing back out don't have as much energy as the speedy incoming ones had - that energy went into creating the aurora!"

Answer 6

of course they are real. duh.

they are caused by solar radiation exciting the upper atmosphere. i've seen lots of them. they're really cool.