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The northern lights (above) and their lesser-known sibling the southern lights, aurora borealis and aurora australis, respectively, undulate across the skies in hazy green and sometimes red ribbons near Earth’s polar regions. The two phenomena aren’t identical, however, and now researchers think they know why. Aurorae appear as solar wind, a gust of charged particles emitted by the sun, blows across Earth’s magnetic field. Because the charged particles flow along symmetrical lines in Earth’s magnetic field linking the north and south poles, it made sense to assume the atmospheric displays in each hemisphere would mirror each other. Advances in Earth...

The aurora australis, or "southern lights," as seen from the International Space Station. Discover Magazine's Bad Astronomer says it's caused by subatomic particles interacting with earth's magnetic field, Wow, that’s slick. It was taken on May 29th by an Expedition 23 astronaut aboard the International Space Station (it’s unknown which one; NASA and the astronauts decided to give the expedition the credit, not an individual crew member). At that moment, the ISS was 350 km (190 miles) above the Indian ocean, and the astronaut was looking south. You can see the limb of the Earth and some stars in the...

Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Dining Services Earth Hour Event: On Saturday, March 27, at 8:30 p.m. Shafer Court Dining Center and Jonah’s will take part in Earth Hour — the world’s largest climate change event. By simply turning out all nonessential lighting for one hour, Dining Services will join tens of millions of concerned citizens through...out the world in calling for action to save the planet. The locations will remain open, but with limited lighting during this hour. For more information about the VCU event, contact tmhighsmith@vcu.edu.

Night spectacular plays across the skies November 10, 2004 - 3:29PM A multi-coloured light show is expected to play across Australia's southern skies this week as a major geomagnetic storm rages above the earth's atmosphere. But metropolitan observers will likely have to travel to the country to see the aurora australis, or southern lights, because ambient light from city illuminations usually drowns out the view. Perry Vlahos of the Astronomical Society of Victoria said it was difficult to predict the intensity of the lights, and city sightings were not impossible but the display was unlikely to be as spectacular as...