No, the northern lights aren't caused by God jumping his Volkswagen, no matter what those old wives tell you. But until now, their exact cause wasn't really clear. To the rescue comes NASA's fleet of Themis satellites, which were sent into orbit last year to observe and record the goings on of the Earth's magnetic field over the poles. By watching the data from Themis while simultaneously conducting ground-based observations at the poles, NASA was able to determine that the lights correspond to magnetic explosions caused by the stretching and retracting of the Earth's magnetic field as we orbit the sun. There's still some debate as to how far away these magnetic explosions occur, but I'm sure such a quibbling argument like that can be settled with a little bare-chested Jell-O wrestling. If only the Israelis and the Palestinians could learn to resolve their differences the same way. More details here.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Northern Lights Explained
