The term aurora borealis was coined by Galileo in 1619, from the Roman Aurora, goddess of the dawn and the Greek name for the north wind (Boreas).
The word aurora is derived from the name of the Roman … See more

Just as there are many types of aurora, there are many different mechanisms that accelerate auroral particles into the atmosphere. Electron aurora in Earth's auroral zone (i.e. commonly visible aurora) can be split into two main categories with different immediate … See more

The earliest datable record of an aurora was recorded in the Bamboo Annals, a historical chronicle of the history of ancient China, in 977 or 957 BC. An aurora was described by the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th century BC. Seneca wrote about auroras in the first … See more

Most auroras occur in a band known as the "auroral zone", which is typically 3° to 6° (approximately 330–660 km) wide in latitude and … See more

A full understanding of the physical processes which lead to different types of auroras is still incomplete, but the basic cause involves the … See more

Earth is constantly immersed in the solar wind, a flow of magnetized hot plasma (a gas of free electrons and positive ions) emitted by the Sun in all directions, a result of the two … See more

The discovery of a 1770 Japanese diary in 2017 depicting auroras above the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto suggested that the storm may have been 7% larger than the See more