Auroras, Meteors, and Other Atmospheric Phenomena

rainbows, sun dogs, halos, and lunar and solar coronas

Auroras

• Auroras originate with the sun.

• Titanic explosions on the sun eject charged particles into space and some hit our planet.

• The particles cause the air to glow - what we call auroras.

Rainbows

• Rainbows are caused by rain drops in the air.

• These rain drops break light down into its many colors.

• When we see the reflected light, we see sun’s spectrum

Sundogs

• Sun dogs work much like rainbows, but the spectrum is caused by ice crystals high up.

• Six-sided ice crystals produce the spectrum and scatter sun’s light.

Halos and Coronas

• Halos around the sun an moon are nothing more than complete sundogs - or moondogs!

• Coronas are caused only by light scattering.

Meteors

• Meteors often arrive from space as meteor showers.

• Meteors are caused by debris from passing comets.

• The debris falls to Earth as a hot, shining streak.

Comets

• Frozen remains from the formation of our solar system.

• While not normally found in our planet’s atmosphere, comets can crash to earth.

• One probably did so in northern Russia in the year 1908.