What causes the northern lights to glow in the sky?
Sky's Sneeze Show
What causes the northern lights to glow in the sky?
Some nights, the far-north sky stops being plain black and starts to glow — curtains of green and pink rippling overhead like silk in a slow wind. People gasp. People whisper. And the obvious question floats up: what on earth is lighting that up? Plot twist — it isn't on earth at all. It starts on the Sun.
The Sun is a giant, restless ball of fire, and it's always sneezing. Not water — it sneezes a steady spray of tiny particles, far too small to see, that fly off in every direction. Scientists call this the solar wind. Think of it as an invisible breeze blowing out from the Sun, constantly, across the whole solar system.
