Northern Lights Mug

The Northern Lights (often referred to as aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and aurora australis in the southern hemisphere) is a light phenomenon caused by charged particles (primarily protons and electrons) entering the Earth's atmosphere at the poles. It is most commonly observed from late autumn to early spring (but not constantly) north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. It is generally not visible from Hungary.

The Northern Lights occur when the solar wind stirs up the magnetosphere so much that charged particles penetrate from the solar wind and magnetosphere into the upper atmosphere, attracted by the Earth's magnetic field, where they transfer some of their energy to the atmosphere. The components of the atmosphere become ionized and excited, emitting light in various colors. The shape of the aurora is determined by the movement of the ionized components. Incoming protons transform into hydrogen atoms through electron capture, emitting colors characteristic of excited hydrogen atoms (red, blue, violet). This phenomenon is generally visible at lower latitudes.^[1] The most common atmospheric components visible are oxygen (red, green) and nitrogen (blue, violet).