auroral displays

• 400 miles up; produced by sunspots

58:2.6The lower five or six miles of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is the tro­po­sphere; this is the re­gion of winds and air cur­rents which pro­vide weather phe­nom­ena. Above this re­gion is the in­ner iono­sphere and next above is the strato­sphere. As­cend­ing from the sur­face of the earth, the tem­per­a­ture steadily falls for six or eight miles, at which height it reg­is­ters around 70 de­grees be­low zero F. This tem­per­a­ture range of from 65 to 70 de­grees be­low zero F. is un­changed in the fur­ther as­cent for forty miles; this realm of con­stant tem­per­a­ture is the strato­sphere. At a height of forty-five or fifty miles, the tem­per­a­ture be­gins to rise, and this in­crease con­tin­ues un­til, at the level of the au­ro­ral dis­plays, a tem­per­a­ture of 1200° F. is at­tained, and it is this in­tense heat that ion­izes the oxy­gen. But tem­per­a­ture in such a rar­efied at­mo­sphere is hardly com­pa­ra­ble with heat reck­on­ing at the sur­face of the earth. Bear in mind that one half of all your at­mo­sphere is to be found in the first three miles. The height of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is in­di­cated by the high­est au­ro­ral stream­ers—about four hun­dred miles.

58:2.7Au­ro­ral phe­nom­ena are di­rectly re­lated to sun­spots, those so­lar cy­clones which whirl in op­po­site di­rec­tions above and be­low the so­lar equa­tor, even as do the ter­res­trial trop­i­cal hur­ri­canes. Such at­mo­spheric dis­tur­bances whirl in op­po­site di­rec­tions when oc­cur­ring above or be­low the equa­tor.

58:2.8The power of sun­spots to al­ter light fre­quen­cies shows that these so­lar storm cen­ters func­tion as enor­mous mag­nets. Such mag­netic fields are able to hurl charged par­ti­cles from the sun­spot craters out through space to the earth’s outer at­mo­sphere, where their ion­iz­ing in­flu­ence pro­duces such spec­tac­u­lar au­ro­ral dis­plays. There­fore do you have the great­est au­ro­ral phe­nom­ena when sun­spots are at their height—or soon there­after—at which time the spots are more gen­er­ally equa­to­ri­ally sit­u­ated.