Aurora Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), sometimes referred to as polar lights, northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in the Earth's sky, predominantly seen in the high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric
Aurora Borealis (painting) end of the American Civil War, "Aurora Borealis" (1865) was believed to depict the portent of a simultaneously triumphant and desolate Union victory, its meaning amplified in relation to later works, including "The After Glow" (1867) and other works. "Aurora Borealis" (1865) was associated with "Rainy Season in the Tropics" (1866) for two reasons. First, the two paintings marked the completion of the arctic-tropical sequence created with "The Heart of the Andes" (1859) and "The North", also known as "The Icebergs" (1861). These pairings drew together popular attention on exploration of the arctic North and the tropical South. The second