This discovery showed that charged atomic particles, electrons, and ions , all originating from the solar wind , were trapped in the Earth's magnetic field above the atmosphere. The Earth's magnetic field exerts electromagnetic control over the charged particles, forcing them into the Van Allen Belts. Some of these charged particles escape from the magnetosphere . Aurora An aurora is an event which occurs when the atmospheric molecules discussed above are excited by incoming charged particles from the solar wind . They emit energy as they fall back to their ground state.
Auroras generally occur at high latitudes, near the Northern and Southern magnetic poles.
The chance of seeing an aurora has been shown to rise and fall with the number of visible sunspots. These spots were first observed by Galileo and have since then been shown to increase and decrease in number over an eleven year period. In essence the solar wind is the hot solar corona expanding into the interplanetary and interstellar space, flowing away from the Sun at speeds as high as millions of miles per hour. Below is a diagram illustrating the affects of the solar wind . When solar wind streams with different velocities interact with each other they create interplanetary shocks or discontinuities in density.