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REPORT ABUSIVE REPLY
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Message Subject
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The Pulsating Aurorae Mystery Solved - Blinking Northern Lights Driven by ELECTROMAGNETIC CHORUS WAVES
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Poster Handle
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Anonymous Coward |
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Post Content
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Cool. The Earth's magnetic field looks like that of a dipole magnet where the field lines are coming out and going into the Earth near the poles. The auroral electrons are thus guided to the high latitude atmosphere.
As they penetrate into the upper atmosphere, the chance of colliding with an atom or molecule increases the deeper they go. Once a collision takes place, the atom or molecule takes some of the energy of the energetic particle and stores it as internal energy while the electron goes on with a reduced speed.
The process of storing energy in a molecule or atom is called "exciting" the atom. An excited atom or molecule can return to the non-excited state (ground state) by sending off a photon, i.e. by making light. [ link to odin.gi.alaska.edu]
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