News > Scientists have solved a decades-old mystery about how auroras form in the sky

Scientists have solved a decades-old mystery about how auroras form in the sky

For years, scientists hadn't been able to confirm how the northern lights cast their spectral glow across the sky.

But they'd long held a theory. First, eruptions on the sun release a stream of charged particles called the solar wind. Those particles interact with Earth's magnetosphere - the region around the planet controlled by its magnetic field. In the process, the field launches powerful electromagnetic waves in the direction of the Earth's surface.