Northern lights: what actually makes the sky glow
The northern lights take their energy from the Sun, but the glow itself is made here, in our own air. This episode follows that energy the long way round: why a flare's light and the solar wind run on different clocks, how Earth's magnetic space speeds up the electrons behind the familiar nighttime display, and how one gas, oxygen, gives off both the green and the red. Then the tenth of October by the numbers: what NOAA's storm scale and the Kp index measure, and why a storm number can't promise anyone's sky.
Why it's worth your drive: NOAA's weekly report says geomagnetic activity reached G3…
The skinny
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