The mystery of the origin of the Northern Lights has been solved.

Aurora borealis, or the Northern Lights, is a multicolored light display that appears in the Northern Hemisphere. The aurora borealis is described as the most spectacular light show on Earth. This phenomenon only occurs at high latitudes, astonishing scientists and sparking centuries of research.

Speculations about the mysterious origins of the aurora borealis have existed for a long time, but only now have these theories been clearly proven.

The mystery of the aurora borealis has been solved.

According to a newly published study, a team of physicists from the University of Iowa has finally successfully demonstrated that the aurora borealis “is created by strong electromagnetic waves in geomagnetic storms.”

Research indicates that these phenomena, also known as Alfven waves, release electrons into the Earth, where they produce the light we call the aurora borealis.

“The calculations show that a small number of electrons experience ‘resonant acceleration’ due to the electric field of the Alfven wave, which can be understood similarly to when a surfer catches the direction of a wave and is continuously accelerated as they surf along with it,” said Associate Professor Greg Howes of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa, who is also a co-author of the study.

The hypothesis of electrons "gliding" through an electromagnetic field was first introduced in 1946 by the Russian physicist Lev Landau. The theory, named after him, is called Landau damping. After more than 70 years, this hypothesis has been proven.

Recreating the aurora borealis

After decades of research, scientists have understood the origins of the aurora borealis, but only now have they been able to clearly demonstrate and replicate these colorful bands of light. For the first time, an artificial aurora has been recreated in a laboratory using a Large Plasma Device (LPD) located at the University of California, Los Angeles's Basic Plasma Science Facility.

According to CNN, scientists used a 20-meter-long chamber to recreate Earth's magnetic field by using strong magnetic field coils on an LPD device. Inside this chamber, they created a plasma environment similar to what exists in near-Earth space.

"Although the experiment didn't replicate the dazzling, colorful light spectrum we see in the sky, our laboratory calculations matched predictions from computer simulations and mathematical calculations, demonstrating that electrons gliding on Alfven waves can accelerate to speeds of up to 72 million km/h and create the aurora," Howes asserted.

Craig Kletzing, co-author of the study, added that these experiments helped them create key measurements for proving previous hypotheses and calculations that accurately explained how the aurora borealis is created.

Many space scientists are also excited about this news. “I’m so excited! It’s very rare to see a lab experiment confirm a theory or model related to the space environment. Because space is so vast that it’s difficult to simulate it in a lab,” said Patrick Koehn, a scientist in NASA’s Helicopter Physics Division.

According to Koehn, understanding the acceleration mechanism of electrons that create the aurora borealis will benefit many future studies.

Huyen Chau