Why does colored light often appear in the sky of the North and South poles?
Colored halos from past to present are very attractive to people. According to incomplete records, China from 30 BC to 1975 had 53 occurrences of colored halos. Along with science and technology, many physicists have done experiments to prove that charged particles’ effect causes the halo in the thin upper atmosphere. In the atmosphere at an altitude of 80-1200 km, extremely thin air of colored halos arises. The Sun is a hot giant sphere. The Sun’s inside and surfaces consecutively take place the fusion reactions of the chemical elements that produce powerful jets of charged tiny particles from the Sun radiated out in all four directions at tremendous speed.
When launched to the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, this stream of charged particles will hit hard with the sparse molecules there that produce luminescence, which is the color halo.
Colored halos appear mostly in the Antarctic and Arctic regions (auroras), and very few arise in the equatorial region. Why? The Earth is like a giant magnet with its poles at the north and south ends. As we know, the guideline always points to the North-South direction, which is due to the influence of the Earth’s magnetic field. The Earth’s magnetic field also influences the flow of charged particles from the Sun. It moves in a spiral pattern towards the North and South poles. So colored halos appear mostly in the North-South polar air. Occurring at the South Pole is called the Antarctic colored halo (Antarctica), arising at the North Pole called the Arctic color halo (the Arctic aurora). China is in the Northern Hemisphere, so the northeastern regions can only see the northern halos.
Why color halo has five colors? This is because the air is caused by oxygen, nitrogen, neon, helium, etc.. Under the effect of a stream of charged particles, different gases will emit different light, so the halo has a different color and shape. There are colored halos like curtains; some are arched, some are belt-shaped, some are light, some are red-orange, some are red-purple, some are light, some are dark. There are times when all five colors interwoven together look very beautiful.
The solar cycle of the Sun is about 11 years. In the period of peak activity, giant spiral black spots appear on the Sun. The surface of the Sun has large explosions that produce a very strong stream of charged particles. When this flow reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, it stimulates the creation of beautiful colored halos. So the number of colored halos is more or less related to strong or weak solar activity. During the most active solar period, the number of colored halos is also greater.
