The Dancing Lights
Auroras have been emitting in our, and other planets’ skies as long as the Solar System has been in motion. In 1619 A.D., Galileo Galilei coined the term "aurora borealis" after Aurora, the Roman goddess of morning. He had the misconception that the auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere. (Angelopoulos, 2008). In 1741, Hiorter and Celsius noted that the polar aurora is accompanied by a disturbance of the magnetic needle. In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted discovered electromagnetism. André-Marie Ampére deduced that magnetism is basically the force between electric currents. In 1851, Samuel Schwabe, a German amateur astronomer, announced the discovery of the 11-year sunspot cycle, and in 1859, Richard Carrington in England observed a violent and rapid eruption near a sunspot; 17 hours later a large magnetic storm began. In 1900-3, Kristian Birkeland experiments with beams of electrons aimed at a magnetized sphere ("terrella") in a vacuum chamber. The electrons hit near the magnetic poles, leading him to propose that the polar aurora is created by electron beams from the Sun. Birkeland also observes magnetic disturbances associated with the aurora, suggesting to him that localized "polar magnetic storms" exist in the auroral zone. In 1958, Eugene Parker (Chicago) proposes the theory of the solar wind. 1981, High resolution images are obtained by Lou Frank's group in Iowa of the entire auroral zone, using the Dynamics Explorer satellite. (Stern & Peredo, 2005) This is the major timeline of how auroras came to be discovered and understood.
Now that the history is covered, I can get down to the nitty gritty of how they are able to appear in the sky. Auroras are caused by the collision of e...
... middle of paper ...
...edaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724150341.htm
Stern,D., Peredo, M. (2005, December 25) Some Dates in the Exploration of the Magnetosphere. Retrieved from: http://http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/whchron2.html
Feldstein, Y. I. (2013, November 20) "Some problems concerning the morphology of auroras and magnetic disturbances at high latitudes.” retrieved from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)
Weber, E. J., et al. (2013, November 20) “F layer ionization patches in the polar cap.” retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)
Mottelay, F. P., (2013, November 20) Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism, p. 114. retrieved from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)
Zell, H. (2013, September 30) About Auroras. retrieved from: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/gallery/aurora-index.html#.UpJsssSsiSo
5th Feb, 2014. Wolf, Johnathan. " The Spotlights." Wolf, Johnathan. AP Physics B. Barron’s:
In 1895, Professor Wilhelm C. Roentgen, a German physicist, was working with a cathode ray tube, much like our fluorescent light bulb. The tube consisted of positive and negative electrodes encapsulated in a glass envelope. On November 8, 1895, Roentgen was conducting experiments in his lab on the effects of cathode rays. He evacuated all the air from the tube and passed a high electric voltage through it after filling it with a special gas. When he did this, the tube began to give off a fluorescent glow. Roentgen then shielded the tube with heavy black paper and discovered a green colored fluorescent light could be seen coming from a screen located a few feet away from the tube.
middle of paper ... ...2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. The "NASA History" Congressional Digest 90.7 (2011): 196-224. Academic Search Premier -. Web.
Duke, Alan. “Frigid air from the North Pole: What’s this polar vortex?” CNN.com. Cable News Network, January 6, 2014. Web. 3 Apr 2014.
"Space Weather, Solar Flares & Sun Storms: Latest News." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2013. http://www.space.com/topics/solar-flares-space-weather-latest-news/
Hope has the incredible ability to make or break someone. People are always told to make large goals in school and employment, and try to reach those ambitions no matter how far they are. Hope is the motivation behind accomplishing dreams, but it also has the ability to break people who have hoped for something so desperately, yet never came to fruition. Only determination and personal situations can persuade hope to fly or fall. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly highlights this ambiguous hope we depend on through the use of symbolism, characterization, and inner conflict.
TheSpaceRace.com - Timeline of Space Exploration. (n.d.). TheSpaceRace.com - Timeline of Space Exploration. Retrieved April 27, 2014, from http://www.thespacerace.com/timeline/
Bailey, P., & Worthington, N. (n.d.). History and Applications of HAARP Technologies: The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Pegasus Research Consortium. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45patrick_bailey/03files/HAARP97.html
they get a sense of who they are and have the ability to reason and
middle of paper ... ... NASA Marshall. Marshall: Launching the Future of Science and Exploration. 15 February 2010 http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/home/index.html>. NASA Public Affairs.
Smil, Vaclav. "The Long Slow Rise of Solar and Wind." Scientific American 310.1 (2014): 52. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Tyler, Pat. Supernova. NASA’s Heasarc: Education and Public Information. 26 Jan. 2003. 22 Nov. 2004
"This Month in Physics History." This Month in Physics History. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Jan. 2014.
The research that established Faraday as the foremost experimental scientist of his day was, however, in the fields of electricity and magnetism. In 1821 he plotted the magnetic field around a conductor carrying an electric current; the existence of the magnetic field had first been observed by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted in 1819.