History
Auroras have been studied for centuries and is a major part in astronomy.
01
400's
The first scientific account of auroras was by Aristotle in the 4th century. He described them as glowing clouds that resembled flames of burning gas
Photo of Aristotle
02
17-1800's
In the 16th century, William Gilbert conducted an experiment that led scientists to think that Earth was a big magnet with a north and south pole. Later Andres Celsius proposed lights were produced by moonlight reflected by ice and water. However, this theory was false. In 1739, George Graham noticed when he was using his compass there were unusual minions from the true north. In the same year, Andre Celsius detected the same thing. After 100 years, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson noticed bright lights on sunspots. This was the first observation of solar flares. The Kew Observatory in London also detected variations in the magnetic field on the same day. ​Elias Loomis a yale professor also spotted auroras in Alaska that day.
Photo of Richard Carrinton
03
19-2000's
Photo of Kristian Birkeland
Finally, in the early 1900’s, they learned that nitrogen and oxygen were the colour source of auroras. Kristian Birkeland a Norwegian scientist decided to revive Gilbert's experiments. He shot an electron beam at a magnet inside a vacuum chamber. This experiment showed that the sun must shoot beams of electrons toward Earth to create auroras. In 1930’s, Sydney Chapman and Vincent Ferraro suggested that storms of charged particles hit earth from the sun (plasma)
04
Now
​After the launch of Sputnik and the Explorer, James Van Allen and Sergei Vernov discovered that space around Earth was filled with charged particles. Now, space probes show solar wind levels. Current scientists understand the transfer of energy from the sun, the storage in magnetosphere, the release of electrons and the interaction with the atmosphere.
