For my last Science + Style article, we’re going to go into the cause of the famous wintry northern lights and take a look at some outfits inspired by aurora borealis, one of the world’s most beautiful displays of science!

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About the Aurora Borealis

It actually all starts far away on our favorite star, the Sun. It contains many swirling sunspots and solar storms that occasionally hurl plasma particles, termed solar wind (a.k.a. what sounds like Marvel’s next big superhero power). These particles can travel super far and reach Earth, whose magnetic field acts like a force field to deflect all these random chunks of star stuff and radiation. 

However, some of the particles can pass through the magnetosphere and are drawn towards the north and south poles (because Earth is basically a big magnet spinning around on its axis). Then, these electrons in these plasma particles collide with the air in the upper atmosphere, hitting oxygen, nitrogen, and other molecules in the air. 

When the plasma electron collides with electrons in the atmosphere, energy is transferred to the Earth’s electrons, which get excited to higher energy states. Excited electrons must drop back to their resting state – just like you need to just chill with some Netflix after a big party – so they release their excess energy to the surroundings. Now, this energy has a wavelength, and that wavelength may be in the visible light spectrum (as I explained in my previous Science and Style article). “Air” is just a mixture of mainly nitrogen and oxygen particles, and these have different energies stored in their bonds. As they get excited, they will release different amounts of energy to the atmosphere, thus creating an array of different colors in the sky. Oxygen usually produces yellow and green, and nitrogen produces red and violet. And there you have it: aurora borealis – explained!