Aurora, also known as ‘Polar Aurora' or Aurora Polaris is a striking heavenly phenomenon of glowing lights that appear in the night sky of the polar zones. Colored bands of sparking lights of red or green are visible in the sky when this strange form of weather illusion takes place! When one looks at this spectacular display of natural lights in the night sky one surely will have the illusion of fireworks! But it is not illusion but the natural phenomena that takes place due the interaction between heavenly elements, sun and outer atmosphere of the earth.

Aurora, the band or curtains of glowing colorful lights appear in the regions of Northern and the Southern latitudes. The auroras that are visible at night in the north sky from the Northern Hemisphere are known as Northern Lights or aurora borealis. Places like Norway, Finland, Mexico, Europe and other Mediterranean countries experience these striking phenomena of aurora borealis. In the southern night sky, from the Southern Hemisphere the glowing aurora is visible known as the Aurora Australis (the term australis meaning south in Latin). Both the Southern and Northern Lights occur in the southern and northern magnetic poles that are commonly known as the auroral oval or the auroral zone.

Interestingly, auroras are caused by the highly charged particles such as electrons that originally come from the solar winds and get trapped within the earth's magnetic field. When these charged particles collide with the molecules of hydrogen helium, oxygen and nitrogen within the earth's ionosphere, the flickers of red, blue,purple and green are created!