Gull Cove Aurora – Note Card 991

The aurora streams over the ocean waters of Alaska’s Inside Passage.The aurora borealis is a beautiful phenomenon of dancing waves of colorful lights in the northern night sky. Also called the northern lights, the aurora have captivated people’s imagination across the millennia. The auroras are created when electrically charged particles in the solar wind collide with the molecules and atoms of gas in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The colors of the aurora range from a striking green, which is seen most often, to red, yellow, pink, blue and purple. The solar winds are attracted to the northern and southern poles by the Earth’s magnetic pull.Visit this amazing University of Alaska Fairbanks website to learn more: www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast