(9) Polar Regions and the Aurora

Basic Facts About the Aurora

View from a Spacecraft Looking Down	View from the Ground Looking Up
About the figure: View from the Ultraviolet Imager on the Polar spacecraft courtesy of G. Parks at University of Washington, J. Spann at Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA. The full auroral sequence (1.1 MB) in available for viewing	About the figure: A breathtaking view of the aurora courtesy of Jan Curtis. Click on the image for a larger version.
Aurora are a very visible low altitude indicator of magnetic disturbances in near-Earth space. Is there an aurora today? Visit our gallery of auroral images

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