What causes the beautiful northern lights?
(MUSIC) Narrator: Welcome to Space Place Musings, where an expert answers questions from our Space Place museum partners across the nation. I’m Diane Fisher, of the New Millennium Program. Our expert is Dr. Marc Rayman, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Marc, some New Yorkers at the Lower Hudson Valley Challenger Center in Suffern wonder whether the aurora borealis can ever be seen in their area. Rayman: Ah, the northern lights. I think they’re so beautiful that I named my colorful pet iguana Aurora. The closer you live to the North Pole, the more likely you will see an aurora. The same cosmic spectacle is also visible near the South Pole, where it is called the aurora australis, or southern lights. Narrator: But why are they visible only near the poles? Rayman: It’s because of Earth’s magnetic field. Although the auroras look like Earth’s own light show, the Sun is actually directing them. The Sun is always sending out a stream of electrically charged particles called the
