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 the same as that employed in plasma fusion laboratories throughout the world, and appears well able to account in principle for most – if not all – detailed properties of the electrons responsible for the brightest forms of auroras, above, below and within the acceleration region. [[Image:Aurora Borealis.jpg|thumb|left|The aurora borealis as viewed from the International Space Station|ISS [[Expedition 6]] team, [[Lake Manicouagan]] is visible to the bottom left]] Other mechanisms have also been proposed, in particular, [[Alfvén waves]], wave modes involving the magnetic field first noted by [[Hannes Alfvén]] (1942), which have been observed in the laboratory and in space.