Amazing Things About Auroras and Rainbows.

Everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain but you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

 

WHAT IS AURORA?

It’s a wonderful light show that occurs in north and south poles. From the above picture it can be seen that aurora comes in different colors but the most common color is green. Aurora also comes in various forms, from small patches of light to arcs, curtains or even shooting

rays of light that lightens up the sky.

Aurora that occurs in northern hemisphere is called aurora Borealis or Northern lights and aurora that occurs in southern hemisphere is called aurora Australis or Southern lights.

Aurora borealis…this is why you should never name something with your mouth full.

WHAT CAUSES AURORA?

Auroras are formed due to collisions of gaseous particles present in air with charge particles released from sun’s atmosphere.

Variation in color of aurora is due to the type of charge particle it collide with

• Collision with nitrogen particles produces blue or purple aurora.
• Green auroras are the result of collision with oxygen molecules at 60 miles above earth.
• Red auroras are produced by the collision oxygen molecules at high altitudes(200 miles).

 
HOW CHARGE PARTICLES GET HERE?

Earth's magnetic field

These charge particles are carried from the sun to earth by solar winds. Due to earth’s magnetic field the charge particles are repelled but they manage to enter the earth’s atmosphere because of opening at either poles.

COOL RAINBOW FACTS:

Everyone observes a different rainbow

• If you have ever observed rainbows from a plane then you might have viewed it in full circles instead of the arc.

• Rainbow is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of white light in suspended droplet of air just after rain.

• You know if you are observing a rainbow and suddenly you also spot a man also looking at the rainbow then this man is actually looking at a different rainbow.

3 STEPS TO SEE A RAINBOW:

Formation of  rainbow on droplets of waterfall

Rainbows can be formed by many forms of airborne water e.g. mist, rain or even dew. The following three steps should be taken to view a rainbow.

1: Stand opposite to a bright source of light.

2: Water droplets should be present in air.

3:Lookup at an angle of 42°.

FORMATION OF A RAINBOW:

Rainbow: It’s a meteorological phenomenon in which you see an arc or a bow of different colors across the sky.

As the white light enters the raindrop at a certain angle it disperses into different colors. The angle for each color is different, colors slow down at different speeds upon entering raindrops.

The white light exits a raindrop as a single color depending on the angle it came in so it is safe to say that only one color comes out of each raindrop and combination of rays of white light entering the raindrops at different angle is what we call a rainbow.

WHY DOES THE RAINBOW HAS A FIXED PATTERN OF COLORS?

Since the lights of shorter wavelength such as violet or blue suffer greater deflection they appear at bottom and lights of longer wavelength e.g. red suffers minimum deflection thus they appear on top. Because of this rain rainbow has a fixed pattern which is Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, blue, Indigo and Violet. This can be remembered as (VIBGYOR).

                  “COUNT YOUR RAINBOWS NOT YOUR THUNDERSTORMS”