Phenomena in the Outer Layers

Topic Description

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to understand how an aurora is formed and understand what causes the orange glow on the tail of the space shuttle as it re-enters the atmosphere. The layers of the atmosphere are shown in the screen in an ascending order away from the Earth’s surface, where the layer closest to the Earth is listed at the bottom. Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis is natural light in the thermosphere caused by the collision of atmospheric atoms with high-energy charged particles coming from the Sun’s solar wind.