Aurora

The Northern Lights. The brilliant displays of colored light in the sky at extreme northern and southern latitudes. The auroral displays are the result of gases in the upper atmosphere being stimulated by bombardment from charged particles and electrons which originate in the Sun--perhaps from solar flares. These solar particles find their way through the Earth's magnetic field at the poles, and funneling down, interact with atoms and ions in the Earth's atmosphere. It gives rise to the "Northern Lights", or Aurora Borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Aurora Australis in the Southern Hemisphere.