Feb 25
Caroline Mather's Comps Presentation
Caroline Mather’s Comps Presentation
Monday, February 25th
8:30 am in Olin 141
The Physics of Auroras
An aurora is a natural light display in the Earth’s ionosphere, produced when high energy charged particles travel from the sun via the solar wind and enter the upper atmosphere. Although this phe-nomenon has been observed since 2000 BCE, it wasn’t until the past half-millennium that astronomers started making accurate assumptions about its formation. In this talk, I will describe how recent scientific discoveries have led to our current understanding of the formation process. I will map out particle motion from the Sun to the ionosphere, then describe how those particles interact with our atmosphere to emit the photons that we see as the auroral light. Throughout the talk, I will maintain a historical timeline, putting emphasis on how improvements to technology and advancements in our understanding of physical concepts contributed directly to our current knowledge.