HOW THE AURORA IS MADE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 140, 14 June 1924, Page 16

HOW THE AURORA IS MADE

SECRET OF THE GREEN LIGHT,

The laboratory used by^ Professor Kammerlingh Ounes,. of Ley'den, in attaining almost the absolute zero of temperature greatly helped Professor Vigard, of Christiania, in his researches into the mysteries of the;envelope- of atmosphere surrounding the earth, states The Hague correspondent of the "Daily Mail." His first discovery was that this atmospheric envelope is itself surrounded by a layer of nitrogen gas the outer wall of which, a solid mass of crystalline particles of nitrogen, frozen by the intense cold of space, give's the sky its blue colour and^ prevents wireless waves from getting lost in the ether. He now claims to have been able to reconstitute the phenomenon of the aurora. The deep green light which accompanies the aurora has long puzzled science, bpectroscopic analysis of the gases composing the atmosphere has so far failed to reveal any that gives a green light. In the* laboratory of Professor Onnes he reproduced as nearly as he could the action of the cold of outer space on nitrogen and in this way solidified gas, Tins crystallised gas he exposed to tli3 action of electric rays. The result was a green light which had all the characteristics of the green glow of the aurora^ Another phenomenon appeared in addition to the green glow. Sometimes the aurora leaves a strange frince-hght, n ■ P** remaill up to five "minutes aiter the aurora has disappeared The frozen nitrogen did the same thing after the bombardment with electric rays had ceased.