Observation 3.2 Astronomy Cast Ep. 163

The subject of this episode of Astronomy Cast is the famed Aurora, known popularly as Aurora Borealis. The episode began with a discussion of the visual features of the aurora, including their appearance and size. A main point of discussion in this episode is the creation of the aurora. Essentially, aurora occur because of the Earth's magnetic field; the Earth was compared to a bar magnet with looping magnetic field lines. In the upper atmosphere, which is closer to the sun's radiation, extremely reactive atomic oxygen is found, which is capable of corroding most materials that enter it. Because of our increasing understanding of this phenomena, scientists are able to predict the Aurora with ever-growing accuracy.