Aurora australis over South Pole. Credit: NOAA. The eerie beauty
of the northern and southern lights (aurorae) has evoked visions
of the supernatural for centuries: foxes of fire whisking their
tales, the fighting souls of dead warriors or ancestors dancing
around a ceremonial fire. The English poet Sir Walter Scott in
1805 conjured up otherworldly beings when he wrote, "He knew, by
the streamers that shot so bright, That spirits were riding the
northern light." But it was a French scientist, not a poet, who
named the sight after Roman gods. In 1621, Pierre Cassendi
paired Aurora, goddess of dawn, with Boreas, god of the north
wind, to christen the northern lights “aurora borealis.” Those
centered above the South Pole are called aurora australis for
“southern dawn.” The Anatomy of an Aurora Deep within the Sun,
93 million miles away, roiling plasma rises and bursts through
the solar atmosphere, sometimes thrusting highly charged protons
and electrons our way. When this so-called solar wind arrives
near Earth,