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The Northern Lights in history |
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and vertically along the magnetic field lines. The electric
currents that appear parallel to the magnetic field are today called the Birkeland currents. Satellites
enabled them to be measured, in the 1970s. As for Störmer, he was able to calculate the trajectories
of electrically charged particles as long ago as 1907. But he was not recognised for this excellent
work at that time. It was only during the International Geophysical Year of 1957 that satellite
measurements suddenly brought the work by Störmer into the spotlight.
The understanding of how auroral light is created advanced throughout the 20th century. However, not until the end of the 1950s was it convincingly shown that the particles which excite atoms and molecules are mostly electrons. Modern physics enabled us |
to understand electromagnetic waves, create the theory of relativity, develop quantum mechanics and build the atom bomb, before all the basic features of the northern lights were understood. |
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