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
Borealis quadrangle Borealis quadrangle The Borealis quadrangle is a quadrangle on Mercury surrounding the north pole down to 65° latitude (see also: geography of Mars). It contains the Goethe Basin, whose diameter of at least makes it the sixth-largest impact basin observed on Mariner 10 images(Murray and others, 1974; Boyce and Grolier, 1977; Strom, 1977) and the seventh-largest known with the discovery of Skinakas Basin. The west half of the mapped area (between long 100° and 190° W.) is dominated by older craters and by intercrater plains material that lies between and within them. Younger crater materials, intermediate plains material, and small