Geomagnetism in the MESA Classroom: An Essential Science for Modern Society

Geomagnetism in the MESA Classroom: An Essential Science for Modern Society Activities for MESA After-School Programs

Image source: Earth science: Geomagnetic reversals David Gubbins, Nature 452, 165-167(13 March 2008), doi:10.1038/452165a

MESA Program Prepared by Susan Buhr, Susan Lynds and Emily Kellagher Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) University of Colorado

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TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements and Funding

4

Overview

6

Applicable Science Education Standards

8

Background Material for Teachers, Sessions One and Two

10

Session One—Geomagnetism and Declination

18

Handout 1.1--Earth’s Magnetic Field

20

Handout 1.2--Earth’s Magnetic Field and a Bar Magnet

22

Handout 1.3--Magnetic Declination

24

Handout 1.4--Magnetic Field Changes Over Time

28

Handout 1.5--Finding Magnetic Declination for a Location

32

Handout 1.6—Navigation with 1823 Pirate Map

36

Activity 1.6--1832 Pirate Map Navigation Exercise

40

Handout 1.7—Airport Runway Declination

42

Activity 1.7—Airport Runway Declination

44

Session Two—Course-Setting and Following

52

Handout 2.1--Using a Compass to Navigate

54

Activity 2.1—Bearing Compass Use

56

Activity 2.2 Creating a Navigation Map to a Cache

58

Background Material for Teachers—Session Three

62

Session Three—Solar Activity and the Earth’s Magnetic Field

70

Handout 3.1--Space Weather Starts at the Sun

72

Handout 3.2--Space Weather and People - Why Should I Care?

73

Handout 3.3--Space Weather—The Aurora

74

Handout 3.4--Where Exactly Are the Aurora?

75

Activity 3.1—How Far South Can Aurora Be Seen?

78

Optional Activity 3.2—Space Weather Prediction Center

82

Session Four—Field Trip to Boulder to NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center Handout 4.1—Field Trip Activity—What’s Going On Here?

84 86

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

AND

FUNDING

Acknowledgements and Funding The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions and support of the development team—Susan McLean (National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA), Carol Knight (Education and Outreach Office, NOAA), Karen Hunter (Colorado MESA Program), and Manuel Saldivar (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Colorado). We would also like to thank George F. Sharman (CIRES Education Outreach, University of Colorado) for his expert review and help in developing the Pirate Map Activity.

The authors wish to express their appreciation to the funding agency responsible for the development of these activities—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) Program.

This program is funded under the following title at the NASA ROSES Program: Geomagnetism in the MESA Classroom: An Essential Science for Modern Society This grant is associated with the following Parent Science Research Award: Modeling the magnetic signal of wind, pressure and gravity driven currents in the ionosphere F-region, 05-ESI/0542, by Dr. Stefan Maus This award was under the following program: Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES-205), Program Element A.15: Earth Surface and Interior, NNH05ZDAS001N

For further information on this program, please contact: Emily Kellagher Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences Education and Outreach, Campus Box 449 Boulder, CO 80309 cires.colorado.edu/education/k12 Emily.Kellagher@colorado.edu

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OVERVIEW Overview: The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education Outreach’s GeoMag kit is a four-part after-school module that allows students to explore geomagnetism with compasses, navigation exercises, and a geo-caching activity, followed by a field trip to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder.

These materials are designed to be adapted to suit the interests and abilities of your students, as well as your time available. Please select from the handouts and activities according to what will be most appropriate for your class. The background materials provided for each session are intended to give you further information for customizing the materials, answering questions, or going further into the topics of your choice.

Some terms and topics are fairly advanced for middle school students. There isn’t time in this package to address the fundamentals of all areas that are mentioned here. A light touch on some of these complex topics will allow students to explore more of the big picture and get the most out of this program.

Time is allowed at the end of each session for report-outs and discussion.

Grade Levels: 6-8

Essential Questions: Session One: What are some characteristics of earth’s magnetic field?

How to we use earth’s magnetic field in navigation?

Session Two: How do we navigate without a GPS? What is geocaching?

Session Three: What causes an aurora?

How are earth’s magnetic field and aurora related?

Session Four: What is space weather?

How do the scientists at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center use space weather data and information?

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OVERVIEW Time Needed: Session One: One 90-minute in-class session Students will receive  an overview of the Earth’s magnetic field and  a course-plotting exercise with historic coordinates featuring adjustment for the magnetic field variations in different locations.  an understanding of airport runway headings Session Two: One 90-minute indoor/outdoor session Students will receive  an introductory activity reviewing the use of a compass  Students will split into teams, each using bearing compasses to construct a navigation route to a cache goal; the teams will then follow another team’s navigation instructions to find the cache.

Session Three: One 60-minute in-class session Students will receive  An introduction to the effect of solar activity on the magnetic field (including a brief aurora video),  An in-class scientist speaker, Dr. Stefan Maus of the National Geophysical Data Center, who will talk about his research of the Earth’s magnetic field, and  An exercise to plot the places where a large aurora was seen Session Four: One 3-hour field trip to Boulder to NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center Students will receive Guided tour of the Space Weather Predictions Center, where students will see live real-time data of the geomagnetic field; the students will also view the Science on a Sphere (SOS) exhibit facility which can project the Earth’s geomagnetic field on a suspended sphere as well as showing solar activity and satellite views of Earth.

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APPLICABLE SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS

Applicable Science Education Standards Magnetic forces are very closely related to electric forces—the two can be thought of as different aspects of a single electromagnetic force. Both are thought of as acting by means of fields: an electric charge has an electric field in the space around it that affects other charges, and a magnet has a magnetic field around it that affects other magnets. What is more, moving electric charges produce magnetic fields and are affected by magnetic fields. This influence is the basis of many natural phenomena.

For example, electric currents circulating in the earth’s core give the earth an extensive magnetic field, which we detect from the orientation of our compass needles.

--American Association for the Advancement of Science (1989). Science for All Americans.

New York: Oxford, p. 56.

Electric and magnetic forces and the relationship between them ought also to be treated qualitatively. Fields can be introduced, but only intuitively. Most important is that students get a sense of electric and magnetic force fields (as well as of gravity) and of some simple relations between magnets and electric currents. ... Diagrams of electric and magnetic fields promote some misconceptions about “lines of force,” notably that the force exists only on those lines. Students should recognize that the lines are used only to show the direction of the field.

--American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New York: Oxford, p. 93.

Electric currents in the earth’s interior give the earth an extensive magnetic field, which we detect from the orientation of compass needles.

--American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007). Atlas of Science Literacy Volume 2. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, p. 27.

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS Introduction to Geomagnetism: Magnet and Iron Filings Activity The following explanation is excerpted from Utah Education Network’s website http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=2702: We know that magnets have forces that will draw iron and steel objects toward them.... With the use of iron filings we can see these magnetic fields. By sprinkling metal filings over a single bar magnet, we can see its magnetic field pattern.

The lines that form these magnetic field patterns are called magnetic field lines. These lines show the direction of the magnetic forces. When iron filings are sprinkled on a bar magnet, you see that these magnetic field lines start at the magnet 's north end and will end at the magnet 's south end.

Introduction to Geomagnetism Excerpts from An Introduction to Geomagnetism, an IMAGE tutorial on the Earth’s Magnetic Field, NASA http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/magnetism/magnetism.html A compass tells you what direction is ‘North’, but have you ever wondered how it can do that? The answer has to do with something called magnetism. Every magnet produces an invisible area of influence around itself. When things made of metal or other magnets come close to this region of space, they feel a pull or a push from the magnet. Scientists call these invisible influences FIELDS. You can make magnetic fields visible to the eye by using iron chips sprinkled on a piece of paper with a magnet underneath.

Image Source: NASA

A compass works the way it does because Earth has a magnetic field that looks a lot like the one in a magnet.

The Earth’s field is completely invisible, but it can be felt by a compass needle on the Earth’s surface, and it reaches thousands of miles out into space. If you were to study the Earth’s invisible magnetic field from space, it wouldn’t really look like a bar magnet at all. Earth’s magnetic field gets stretched out into a comet-like shape with a tail of magnetism that stretches millions of miles behind Earth, opposite from the sun (see image below). The sun has a wind of gas that pushes Earth’s field from the right to the left in the drawing below. Scientists have studied many different parts of Earth’s magnetic field and have given them names so that they can talk to one another about them. Each part is part of the vast ‘geomagnetic system’ in which many amazing things have been seen and discovered.

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS

The core of Earth is an electromagnet. Although the crust is solid, the core of the Earth is surrounded by a mixture of molten iron and nickel. The magnetic field of Earth is caused by currents of electricity that flow in the molten core. These currents are hundreds of miles wide and flow at thousands of miles per hour as the earth rotates. The powerful magnetic field passes out through the core of the earth, passes through the crust and enters space. The image below was created by a computer from a mathematical model, shows the solid inner core region (inner circle) surrounded by a molten outer core (the area between the two circles). The currents flow in the outer core, and the lines of force shown in yellow, travel outwards through the rest of Earth’s interior. If the earth rotated faster, it would have a stronger magnetic field. If it had a larger liquid core it would also have a stronger magnetic field. By the time the field has reached the surface of earth, it has weakened a lot, but it is still strong enough to keep your compass needles pointed towards one of its poles.

Image Source: NASA

The magnetic poles of Earth are not fixed on the surface, but wander quite a bit as the map below shows. The pole in the Northern Hemisphere seems to be moving northwards in geographic latitude by about 10 kilometers per year, but the motion is only an average. On any given day, it moves erratically by many tens of meters because of changes in the currents inside Earth’s core, as well as the influence of electrical currents in the ionosphere, and the changing space environment due to solar storms and winds. A magnetic compass needle tries to align itself with the magnetic field lines. However, at (and near) the magnetic poles, the fields of force are vertically converging on the region (the inclination (I) is near 90 degrees and the horizontal intensity (H) is weak).

The strength and direction tend to "tilt" the compass needle up or down into the Earth. This causes the needle to

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS "point" in the direction where the compass is tilted regardless of the compass direction, rendering the compass useless. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/faqgeom.shtml

Image Source: NASA

During WWII, magnetometers that were attached to ships to search for submarines discovered a lot about the magnetic properties of the seafloor. In fact, using magnetometers, scientists discovered an astonishing feature of Earth's magnetic field. Sometimes, no one really knows why, the magnetic poles switch positions. North becomes south and south becomes north! When the north and south poles are aligned as they are now, geologists say the polarity is normal. When they are in the opposite position, they say that the polarity is reversed.

Studies of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean half-way between North America and Europe have shown that as the fresh rock cools, it records the polarity of Earth’s field (see figure below). By dating the rocks on either side of the ridge, geologists discovered that the polarity of the Earth’s field changes over the course of thousands of years. This was an exciting discovery that not only verified the theory of Continental Drift, but demonstrated that Earth’s magnetism isn’t constant over millions of years. The magnetic field of Earth actually changes its polarity over time. They are called Polarity Reversals, but should not be confused with the rotation axis of Earth actually changing.

Image Source: AAAS

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS The last one of these Polarity Reversals happened about 770,000 years ago. At the present time, Earth’s magnetic field is weakening in strength by 5% every 100 years. It may be near zero in another few thousand years at this rate. Earth’s field often changes its strength significantly in a short time (measured in thousands of years) and often does not vanish every time. Scientists have a lot to learn about the exact behavior of Earth’s complex field. Until then, making predictions about what it may look like in a few thousand years from now is a matter of guessing, not forecasting.

General Information on Magnetic Compasses, from http://www.icsm.gov.au/mapping/coordinates.html

There are two North Poles: The first is the Geographic (or True) North Pole:    

The point toward which all north directions point.

The location where the north end of the Earth's rotation axis emerges from the earth.

It defined as 90°N It is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean Positive Declination

The second is the Magnetic North Pole  



It is the point that a magnetic compass points to.

It is presently located in Canadian Territorial waters, west of Greenland. It is slowly moving in a northwesterly direction across the Arctic Ocean. It is estimated that it is moving at a speed of about 40 kilometers per year and over the last century the Magnetic Pole has moved a remarkable 1100 kilometers.

This magnetic attraction and movement is a result of the magnetic forces within the Earth.

Finally, there are also two South Poles – Geographic and Magnetic. The Magnetic South Pole is magnetic, but this is very weak and hard to identify even if you are near it, as a result magnetic compasses rarely point to the South Magnetic Pole. Read more about the South Poles on the Australian Antarctic Division's website http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/fact-files/geography/poles-and-directions

The difference in direction between true north and magnetic north, called declination in maps and variation in nautical charts, differs from place to place and year to year because Earth’s magnetic field shifts over time. Most topographic maps graphically represent the directions to true and magnetic north in their legend, including the angle of declination for that position. Most nautical charts graphically represent the directions to true and magnetic north, plus the local variation, in the form of a printed compass dial called a compass rose.

Note: West Declination is always Subtracted and East Declination is always Added. i.e., TRUE NORTH = MAGNETIC NORTH ± (DECLINATION) From http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/compassnavigati_secc.htm

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS Using a Hand-Bearing Compass for Navigation The simple compass is the most fundamental and useful tool for navigation ever invented. With the recent advent and widespread use of GPS (global positioning system) technology, knowledge of how to use a compass is rapidly falling by the wayside. Many people think a compass can only tell the user one thing: which way is north.

The truth is though, it can provide much more information than that, and coupled with maps or nautical charts, it can help you determine your exact position.

A hand-bearing type compass is the most useful type of hand-held compass for navigation purposes. This type of compass allows you to sight or line up on distant land marks and read the “bearing” to them, which is a number ranging from zero to 360 degrees within the arc of a circle. To understand this use of a compass, you will have to learn to think of directions or points on the compass in terms of degrees. It works like this: Since there are 360 degrees in a complete circle, and north is the direction compass needles are magnetized to point to, zero degrees (which is the same as 360 degrees) is due north. Working around the circle of the compass dial in a clockwise direction, we come to 90 degrees, which is due east, 180 degrees, which is due south, 270 degrees, which is due west, until we arrive at 360 degrees, or zero, again at due north. Get familiar with the numeric equivalents of these four main points of the compass, and then practice taking bearings by lining up the sight line of your compass to distant objects, and then reading the bearing in degrees. It is much more accurate to describe a bearing as 110 degrees for instance, than to say something like east-southeast. The numeric bearing pinpoints the direction so there is no ambiguity of terminology.

Excerpts from an article on navigation from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company

Position and Direction on the Earth’s Surface The basic problems of navigating any craft involve the determination of its position and direction and the measurement of speed, distance, and time in proceeding from one point to another. Position is a point on the earth’s surface that can be recognized as part of an accepted set of coordinates, such as latitude and longitude.

Direction is the position of one place relative to another without reference to the distance between them and is usually indicated as the angular distance, measured in degrees of arc, from the direction of true north. Speed is the rate of travel expressed in nautical miles per hour (1 knot = 1.853 km/hr, or 1.15 statute mph), and distance is the spatial length between two places without reference to the direction between them. Because aeronautical charts were first derived from maritime charts, nautical miles and knots are the standard used in aeronautics as well as in maritime navigation.

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS History The development of navigation was paced by mankind’s discovery of the true shape and scale of the world and the universe, and by the advances in technology that made accurate, precision timepieces possible. Ancient sailors soon learned that as the earth rotated, one star—Polaris—appeared to stay fixed in the skies, yet moved toward the horizon as they sailed toward warmer climates. By measuring the angle between Polaris and the horizon, mariners could approximate their latitude, keeping track of the ship’s movement in the north-south direction.

Longitude was more complex; for many centuries, mariners could only guess at their movement in the east-west direction; hence Christopher Columbus’s belief on his first trans-Atlantic voyage in 1492 that he had reached the East Indies when, in fact, his ships had not traveled nearly so far westward from Europe. Longitude can be determined from the position of the stars in the sky, but the stars shift slightly eastward each day as the year progresses. It is therefore necessary to know the precise local time relative to a fixed central reference point; if the number of hours east or west of the fixed point is known, the star shift can be determined. Accurate timepieces, th however, were not available until the 18 century.

The most important single advance in modern navigation was the development by the English horologist John Harrison (1693–1776) of the first accurate marine chronometer in 1761; on a voyage from London to the West Indies, this specially constructed clock accurately determined the ship’s longitude. Mechanical clocks ultimately have been replaced by electronic devices relying on atomic vibrations, but all—including the most advanced satellite navigation systems—share the common principle that determination of location depends on the accurate measurement of time. th

In the 20 century, a great variety of electronic aids have made navigation at sea and in the air safer and more accurate. Navigation principles and aids to navigation apply to both nautical and aeronautical navigation, although some techniques are specific to one or the other.

Navigation Instruments Many instruments are employed today to facilitate navigation; some are relatively simple to use and others require extensive programs of instruction. In the latter category are some of the modern electronic and mechanical devices. Since 2000, the accuracy of GPS (global positioning system) systems available has increased and it seems nowadays it is taken for granted in everyday use by people in consumer devices as well as professional and military devices.

Navigation instruments are designed to determine (or fix) position, measure direction and distance, determine speed, measure the depth of water, assist in plotting on charts, and observe the weather elements. Often a combination of various instruments is used simultaneously to yield the required information or to provide several “error boxes,” with the craft’s position being taken as the center of the area where they all overlap.

Magnetic Compass The magnetic compass is one of the oldest instruments used aboard ships and aircraft. Although it has been generally supplanted by the gyrocompass (see below) on large ships, the magnetic compass retains its original role as the basic navigational instrument because it is not subject to electromechanical defects, and on most seagoing ships it is a necessary standby instrument. The magnetic compass serves as a directional device by aligning itself in the direction of the earth’s magnetic poles.

Because of the location of the magnetic poles, the needle of a compass will point to the geographical North Pole only in a few localities. In other places, it will point either east or west of north. The difference in degrees between the bearing of the compass needle and the bearing of true north is called variation, or declination. For the convenience of navigators, the declination in many parts of the world has been measured, and charts have been

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SESSIONS ONE AND TWO BACKGROUND MATERIALS prepared that show by connected points of equal declination, or isogonic lines, the approximate east or west declination for any area. On such charts, the line of no declination, along which the compass points true north, is called an agonic line. The magnetic North Pole drifts, so charts must be reissued every few years to compensate for the changes.

GPS or Global Positioning System GPS or the Global Positioning System was invented by the U.S. Department of Defense (D.O.D) and Ivan Getting, at the cost of twelve billion taxpayer dollars. The Global Positioning System is a satellite navigational system, predominantly designed for navigation. GPS has been used to pinpoint any ship or submarine on the ocean, and to measure Mount Everest. GPS receivers have been miniaturized to just a few integrated circuits, becoming very economical. Today, GPS is finding its way into cars, boats, planes, construction equipment, movie making gear, farm machinery, laptop computers and even phones.

Civilian use for GPS A defining occurrence for GPS occurred when Korean Flight 007 wandered off its course, flying over the highly sensitive Russian area around Sakhalin Island where it was shot down with the death of all 269 passengers on board. As a result, President Reagan ordered that GPS should be made freely available for civilian use once it was sufficiently developed.

The version of GPS available for civilian use was downgraded using what was termed Selective Availability, SA. The full accuracy was reserved for military use. President Bill Clinton ordered that Selective Availability should be turned off at midnight on 1st May 2000. The USA protected their advantage because they could deny service to potential adversaries on a regional basis. http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/satellite/gps/history-dates.php

GPS Accuracy and Precision GPS is proven to be a very valuable tool for the purposes of Surveying and Navigation however its users must be aware of its characteristics and cautious of its limitations.

Common Factors affecting the accuracy of GPS:  Reduced number of satellites seen by the receiver  Reduced strength of satellite geometry  Satellite signal multipath  Corruption of GPS measurements  Signal Delay caused by the Ionosphere  Signal Delay caused by the Troposphere  Orbit Errors (GPS satellite position inaccuracy)

Ideal Conditions Ideal conditions for GPS Surveying or Navigation are a clear view of the sky with no obstructions from about 5 degrees elevation and up.

Any obstructions in the area of the GPS antenna can cause a very significant reduction in accuracy. Examples of interfering obstructions include: buildings, trees, fences, cables etc. http://earthmeasurement.com/GPS_accuracy.html

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SESSIONS ONE: GEOMAGNETISM AND DECLINATION Session One: Geomagnetism and Declination Lesson Overview Students will receive an overview of the Earth’s magnetic field and experience with an airline course-plotting exercise with maps featuring adjustment for the magnetic field declination in different locations.

Learning Objectives     



Students will understand that the Earth’s magnetic field is caused by movement of the Earth’s liquid outer core.

Students will understand that invisible magnetic fields exist around magnets.

Students will understand that the magnetic poles move over time.

Students will understand that compasses point to magnetic north, not geographic north, because the magnetic pole is in a different location from the geographic pole.

Students will understand that navigation using compasses involves adjusting the direction of a heading with the declination for their location.

Students will use their understanding of magnetic headings and declination to locate a navigation course form a historical map.

Outline—Time Required is Approximately 90 minutes o

o

Introduction to Geomagnetism  Using handouts 1.1, and 1.2, the instructor presents the goals of the activity. These activities allow students an opportunity to explore magnetic field lines and answers a common question students have about how a compass behaves at the north pole!

Jigsaw Activity– Introduction to Geomagnetism  The Jigsaw strategy helps students learn new material using a cooperative/team approach. It gives students an opportunity to share their learning, hear what their peers have to share on a topic, and teach and be taught by others. These are valuable socialization skills for students to experience inside and outside the classroom. 

o

Teacher Demonstration using Handouts 1.5 and 1.6. Teacher will discuss navigating with a map and compass. The teacher will review declination for a particular location with Handout 1.5. With handout 1.6 the teacher will introduce the activity and assist the groups through the initial steps before they let them to continue to solve the 1823 Pirate Map activity. (10 minutes)

o

Activity 1.6 -- Navigation with 1832 Pirate Map  Instructions and map handout (2 pages) are distributed to the teams. They are the navigators for a private Treasure hunting company who need to locate a treasure from an 1823 pirate map that was discovered recently. There are several steps to the activity that you will want to help students with initially. (20 minutes)  If time allows, students may create their own historical map mysteries  NOTE – This activity uses geometry to solve the mystery so you may need to adapt for your students skills and needs.

o

Activity 1.7 –Airport Runway Designation  Pass out Student Handout 1.7 and the Student Activity 1.7. See if the students can read the instructions and proceed with minimal instruction. Students will need internet access for this activity.

o

Group Report-Outs (What answers did the teams get?) and Discussion (15 minutes)

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SESSIONS ONE: GEOMAGNETISM AND DECLINATION Equipment        

Copies of jigsaw group Handouts 1.1-1.4 for student in each jigsaw group Copies of Handouts 1.5-1.7 and Activity 1.1 and 1.7 for each student.

Color images for projection are available GeoMag.Color-Images.pptx Bar magnet, iron filings, and sheet of white paper for Handout 1.1.

Styrofoam ball, toothpicks and a marker for Handout 1.3 Protractor for each three-student team.

Ruler for each three-student team.

Internet access

Terminology Electromagnet: a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current.

Magnetic declination: The angle between the local magnetic field (the direction the north end of a compass point) and geographic north.

Magnetic field: A field that surrounds magnets and electric currents, detectable because it exerts a force on moving electric charges and on magnetic materials.

Discussion Question Using the knowledge you have gained from the study of geomagnetism and declination, discuss some factors that might need to be considered when designing navigation instruments. Why it is important to have current technology? Support this with scientific explanations.

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HANDOUT 1.1 – EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD This handout will give you the basics about Earth’s magnetic field. Read and discuss with your group this article. You may wish to use other resources as well.

Be ready to teach the other groups what you have learned about Earth’s magnetic field.

The core of Earth is an electromagnet. Although the crust is solid, the core of the Earth is surrounded by a mixture of molten iron and nickel. The magnetic field of Earth is caused by currents of electricity that flow in the molten core. These currents are hundreds of miles wide and flow at thousands of miles per hour as the earth rotates. The powerful magnetic field passes out through the core of the earth, passes through the crust and enters space.

The image below shows the solid inner core region surrounded by a molten outer core. The arrows show the direction of the magnetic field of the Earth that is generated in this outer core.

Worth Pondering: Is the magnetic field different in different places of the Earth?

Yes, the magnetic field of the earth changes from location to location on the earth's surface, just like the magnetic field changes near a magnet.

Some examples of local anomalies that can effect the magnetic field of the earth are iron deposits in the crust, geological features that are volcanic, such as faults and lava beds, and topographical features such as ridges, trenches, seamounts, and mountains.

Frederick Vine showed the symmetry of magnetic anomalies around oceanic mountain ranges.

Image source: Earth science: Geomagnetic reversals—David Gubbins—Nature 452, 165-167(13 March 2008)

What does a compass do at the North Pole? Check out this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjGr7IegCVY 20 CIRES Education and Outreach

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HANDOUT 1.2 – EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD AND A BAR MAGNET

!! WARNING !! Iron filings are messy and will stick to magnets. It is important to have paper or transparencies between the filings and the magnets.

Exploring Magnetic Field Lines Procedure: Place the paper on top of one of you bar magnet, trace the outline of the bar magnet and mark which end is North and which is South. Lightly sprinkle the iron filings uniformly over the paper and then give the paper some gentle taps to make the filings align with the magnetic field, as shown in the photograph below.

Questions: On another sheet of paper answer the following questions.

1. What did you observe when you sprinkled the iron filings over the paper covering the bar magnet? Draw what you observed.

2. Can you explain why the iron filings behaved that way?

3. Draw what you expect to see when you sprinkle iron filings over two bar magnets in a new configuration.

The Dynamo Effect: The Earth's magnetic field is attributed to a dynamo effect of circulating electric current, but it is not constant in direction.

Rock specimens of different age in similar locations have different directions of permanent magnetization.

Evidence for 171 magnetic field reversals during the past 71 million years has been reported.

Although the details of the dynamo effect are not known in detail, the rotation of the Earth plays a part in generating the currents which are presumed to be the source of the magnetic field.

Source: http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/magn etic/magearth.html

4. Draw what you did, in fact, see with your two magnets in the new configuration. How were your expectations the same or different?

Clean Up: Lift up the paper carefully so as to not spill any of the filings, and funnel them back into your filings jar.

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HANDOUT 1.3 – MAGNETIC DECLINATION This handout will help you explain navigating with Earth’s magnetic field and Earth’s geographical axis. Read and discuss this article with your group. Then as a group create a model to explain declination. You may wish to use other resources as well. Be ready to teach the other students in your class what you have learned about Earth’s magnetic field.

There are two North Poles: The first is the Geographic (or True) North Pole:    

The point toward which all north directions point.

The location where the north end of the Earth's rotation axis emerges from the earth.

It is defined as 90°N It is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean

The second is the Magnetic North Pole  



It is the point that a magnetic compass points to.

It is presently located in Canadian Territorial waters, west of Greenland. It is slowly moving in a north-westerly direction across the Arctic Ocean. It is estimated that it is moving at a speed of about 40 kilometers per year and over the last century the Magnetic Pole has moved a remarkable 1100 kilometers.

This magnetic attraction and movement is a result of the magnetic forces within the Earth.

Finally, there are also two South Poles – Geographic and Magnetic. The Magnetic South Pole is magnetic, but this is very weak and hard to identify even if you are near it, as a result magnetic compasses rarely point to the South Magnetic Pole.

The difference in direction between true north and magnetic north, called declination in maps and variation in nautical charts, differs from place to place and year to year because Earth’s magnetic field shifts over time. Most topographic maps graphically represent the directions to true and magnetic north in their legend, including the angle of declination for that position. Most nautical charts graphically represent the directions to true and magnetic north, plus the local variation, in the form of a printed compass dial called a compass rose.

When translating from map to compass, add the number of degrees of west declination. Subtract east declination. When going from compass to map, just reverse, adding east declination, and subtracting west.

TRUE NORTH = MAGNETIC NORTH ± (DECLINATION) From http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/compassnavigati_secc.htm

Declination In the picture of the Earth to the right, you can see that the magnetic north pole is in a different place from the geographic north pole (the axis along which the Earth spins).

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HANDOUT 1.3 – MAGNETIC DECLINATION A compass will align itself with the Earth’s magnetic field, not the geographic pole. The direction in which the compass needle points is known as Magnetic North, and the angle between Magnetic North and the True North direction is called magnetic declination.

The method for correcting for declination is as follows: 1. For Easterly Declination, subtract the declination from the true reading to obtain the magnetic reading. Magnetic = true - easterly declination 2. For Westerly Declination, add the declination to the true reading to obtain the magnetic reading.

Magnetic = true + westerly declination An easy way to remember whether to add or subtract is "West is best and East is least." So for West declination, add to the true reading (West is best, and therefore a larger number) and for East declination subtract from the true reading (East is least, and therefore a smaller number).

In the map below, the declinations for the United States are shown. To calculate a true direction in the United States, take the heading and either add the declination (for West Declination) or subtract it (for East Declination) from your desired heading. This will be the magnetic heading you want to follow.

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HANDOUT 1.3 – MAGNETIC DECLINATION Let’s make a Teaching Model: Materials Needed: Styrofoam ball Toothpicks Marker Procedure: Take a Styrofoam ball and place two toothpicks in it. One at the top and one directly underneath. The toothpicks will represent the geographic north and south poles.

Next use a marker and place a dot near the north pole to represent the magnetic north pole.

See the image at the right for reference.

Now choose a location that is about in the middle of the ball. Draw a line from the pole to your location and from the location to the magnetic north position.

See the image at the left for reference.

Determine if the declination is easterly or westerly. You may review the information above for a more in-depth explanation.

Now use your model to teach your classmates about easterly and westerly declination.

Questions to Consider: Why do USA cities on the east coast have a westerly declination?

Why do USA cities on the west coast have an easterly declination?

TRUE or FALSE The States of Florida, Georgia and Kentucky will always have a westerly declination.

What questions does your group have about declination?

Extension: If you have time and would like to create a model for this activity with a tennis ball, use the following link to download a great map from EarthKam. https://earthkam.ucsd.edu/files/pdf/GeoCreateATennisBallGlobe.pdf

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HANDOUT 1.4 – MAGNETIC FIELD CHANGES OVER TIME

This handout will help you understand H that Earth’s 1.4 magnetic field changes over time. Read ANDOUT – MAGNETIC FIELD CHANGES Oand VER TIME discuss this article with your group. Then as a group explore NOAA’s historic declination calculator.

Be ready to teach the other students in your class what you have learned about Earth’s magnetic field.

Magnetic declination for a location is often printed on a topographic map or navigation chart. These values, however, are not always accurate because the magnetic field changes over time. Check out the picture on the left of a topo map.

Notice the date? Topo maps are updated regularly so it is important to look at the date and use the latest version of map available so when you are using a compass and navigating, you will be able to know where you are and where you are heading. You could get lost from using an outdated map if you only navigated with a compass.

Read on to discover how the magnetic field changes over time.

The map to the right shows where the north magnetic pole was from 1900 through 2005. Why does it move? Exactly how this happens isn’t widely understood, but it is thought to be due to change in the rate of spin of the Earth’s core and the currents in the molten outer core.

Another feature of the geomagnetic field is that over long periods of time, the north and south magnetic poles switch positions. It is believed this happens over months or years and might have only very mild effects to organisms living on the earth.

The popular notion of a “pole shift” is certainly a documented fact with regard to the magnetic poles, but not with regard to the geographic poles of rotation. There is no scientific evidence for the planet physically flipping upside down.

Movement of the North Pole in Northern Canada

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HANDOUT 1.4 – MAGNETIC FIELD CHANGES OVER TIME

A compass in Fairbanks would have pointed along line #2 in 1900 to what was then the north magnetic pole, but it would point along line #1, near the present magnetic pole, in 2005.

A compass in Winnepeg would have pointed along line #4 in 1900 to where the magnetic pole was at the time. It would have pointed along line #3, near the present magnetic pole, in 2005.

As you see, the declination can change quite a bit over time, depending on where you are and what year it is. Using an old map or chart can be risky since the declination it gives you may be decades out of date.

Image source: www.compassdude.com/compass-declination.shtml

Fun Fact: Airport runways are designated according to the points on a compass?

Runway Designators. Runway numbers and letters are determined from the approach direction. The runway number is the whole number nearest one-tenth the magnetic azimuth of the centerline of the runway, measured clockwise from the magnetic north. The letters, differentiate between left (L), right (R), for parallel runways.

Travelers have struggled with the complexity of navigating by compass for centuries, and modern American travelers are no exception. The magnetic poles don't line up with the geographic ones, and the difference between them is an angle called declination. As if this wasn't enough of a nuisance for navigators, the Earth's magnetic field drifts, causing the angle of declination to change over time.

So the drifting magnetic north means that airport runways, periodically, need to be renamed.

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HANDOUT 1.4 – MAGNETIC FIELD CHANGES OVER TIME

Historic Declination

Want to see how the declination has changed over the years? Want to compare how it has changed in the last 10, 25, 50 or even 100 years? Check out the Historic Declination tab and record your findings.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#declination

US Historic Declination Location you chose: Latitude: Longitude: Year

Declination (+ E | - W)

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HANDOUT 1.5 – FINDING MAGNETIC DECLINATION So how do we find out what the magnetic declination is for a specific location?

The online calculator provided by the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, CO, is one resource. To use it, you enter the zip code or latitude/longitude of a location and the date you want it for, and the calculator will provide you with the declination.

URL: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#declination For example, here are the zip codes for three airports that we’ll use in our navigation exercise: Los Angeles, CA (LAX)—90045 Chicago, IL (ORD)—60666 Jamaica, NY (JFK)—11430 The declinations for 2013 are as follows: LAX: 12 degrees 27 minutes E ORD: -3 degrees 40 minutes W JFK: -13 degrees 6 minutes W

National Geophysical Data Center Declination Calculator

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HANDOUT 1.5 – FINDING MAGNETIC DECLINATION

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HANDOUT 1.5 – FINDING MAGNETIC DECLINATION Checkout the declination for several US state capitols and major cities.

Use the NOAA declination calculator http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#declination

US Cities Declination US City Sacramento, CA Carson City, NV Salt Lake City, UT Cheyenne, WY Topeka, KS Jefferson City, MO Springfield, IL Columbus, OH Charleston, SC Richmond, VA Philadelphia, PA Brooklyn, NY Boston, MA

Declination (+ E | - W)

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HANDOUT 1.5 – FINDING MAGNETIC DECLINATION Questions to Consider: What patterns did you notice? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Find four cities with the same or nearly the same declination. __________________________

_____________________________

__________________________

_____________________________

Is there a difference in between the east and west coast of the USA in reguards to declination?

What difference did you notice? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ The NOAA declination calculator also notes how much the declination is changing in a location over a years time. Look up Anchorage, AK and Albany, NY. Now predict how much declination change Honolulu, HI might experience.

Anchorage, AK ____________ Honolulu, HI (prediction) _____________

Albany NY _________________ Honolulu, HI (actual) _____________

Pick three cities to explore further that might have an intersting declination pattern. ___________________ City 1

__________________ City 2

____________________ City 3

What pattern did you think you might find and what pattern did you actually find? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 35 CIRES Education and Outreach

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HANDOUT 1.6 窶年AVIGATION WITH AN 1823 PIRATE MAP

The United States is home to a wealth of treasure hunting possibilities. From gemstones and meteors, to old civil war coins and pirate treasure, modern day treasure hunters sometime stumble upon old clues like this old note from 1823. What clues can you gather from this text? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 36 CIRES Education and Outreach http://cires.colorado.edu/education/outreach/

HANDOUT 1.6 —NAVIGATION WITH AN 1823 PIRATE MAP We will need to step through the following process to solve this mystery and find the treasure.

A) First do we have a location to start looking? Use the internet to see if you can find a USA location to begin our search.

________________________________________

B) Are there further clues to narrow down the location? (HINT: look for street name words) ________________________________________________________________________ C) The bearings in this note are from 1823 and are referenced from a compass because it states the bearings in magnetic degrees. What do you know about earth’s magnetic field? Will these bearings be the same today as they were in 1823? Explain your answer. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ D) We have a very excellent tool to use to check the historic magnetic declination. Go to NOAA’s Historic Declination Calulator. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#ushistoric (SPOILER ALERT) The latitude and longitude coordinates you should use should be for Long Beach, CA; the eastern most intersection of East Shoreline Drive: 33.764626° N, 118.183765°W.

You must get the declination for both 1823 and the today, 2013.

1823: ______________________

2013: _____________________________

E) Now we need to shift gears a bit. Use the graph paper provided to draw out the directions in the note. 60 paces E, 36 paces S, 12 paces W

To solve this mystery we will need to use some geometry. Look at the paces you have just drawn. Using a ruler close the shape by connecting the start and the end.

Notice the two shapes within the total shape.

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HANDOUT 1.6 —NAVIGATION WITH AN 1823 PIRATE MAP F) Draw a line at the start to designate True North and label it. Next find the angle of the start with your protractor. Now go back to the note. The direction from the start is East (090o). Locate the right angle create by True north and the starting pace line. To find the bearing of the treasure we will add 90o + 37o. The bearing is ________ East of North.

G) Will the shape the pirate paced out change or be the same from 1823 to 2013? ___________________________________________________________________________ F) Using the information from the US Historic Declination calulator we know the declination in 1823 was +12.18333°, that is, magnetic north was some 12° east of True or Geographic North. In 2013, the declination for the same position is +12.40000°. So the change in direction of the magnetic field in Long Beach, California has been relatively small, less than 1 degree.

Since Magnetic north is east of True north, the magnetic bearing of 127° in 1823 was actually a true bearing of (127 + 12.18333°) or 139.183°.

Correcting for the change of declination, today’s magnetic bearing would then be the True bearing minus today’s declination (since magnetic north is east of true north), a magnetic bearing is _______. ____________________ True bearing

-

____________________ = ____________________ today’s declination magnetic bearing

SOLVE PART 1: LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA TREASURE HUNT a) Where is the treasure with respect to the starting point in terms of geographic direction and distance? b) If you use a compass today, where is the treasure with respect to the staring point in terms of magnetic direction and distance?

But wait! There’s more! There is also a Long Beach, New York, and a Shore Road, whose easternmost intersection, with Pacific Boulevard is at 40.584103°N, 73.640915°W. You can check Google Maps again. So now repeat the exercise for this location, again getting the position relative to the starting point in terms of distance along with geographic direction and magnetic direction.

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ACTIVITY 1. 6 —NAVIGATION WITH AN 1823 PIRATE MAP SOLVE PART 2: LONG BEACH NEW YORK TREASURE HUNT A) The geometry of the puzzle stays the same. Since the location changed we must find the new declinations.Go to NOAA’s Historic Declination Calulator. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#ushistoric The latitude and longitude coordinates you should use should be for Long Beach, New York, and a Shore Road, whose easternmost intersection, with Pacific Boulevard is at 40.584103°N, 73.640915°W

You must get the declination for both 1823 and the today, 2013.

1823: ______________________

2013: _____________________________

a) Where is the treasure with respect to the starting point in terms of geographic direction and distance? b) If you use a compass today, where is the treasure with respect to the staring point in terms of magnetic direction and distance

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HANDOUT 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION Airport Runway Declination Activity: Introduction: How do USA airports designate their runway numbers?

Runway Designators. Runway numbers and letters are determined from the approach direction. The runway number is the whole number nearest one-tenth the magnetic azimuth of the centerline of the runway, measured clockwise from the magnetic north. The letters, differentiate between left (L), right (R), for parallel runways.

Travelers have struggled with the complexity of navigating by compass for centuries, and modern American travelers are no exception. The magnetic poles don't line up with the geographic ones, and the difference between them is an angle called declination. As if this wasn't enough of a nuisance for navigators, the Earth's magnetic field drifts, causing the angle of declination to change over time.

So the drifting magnetic north means that airport runways, periodically, need to be renamed.

Your Task: Read the following article about the Tampa international airport’s runway designation change.

This is the first time the designations have changed since the current Tampa International Airport opened in 1971.

The shifting of the planet’s northern magnetic pole forced Tampa International Airport to readjust their runways on Thursday, according to a report by Jeremy A. Kaplan of Foxnews.com.

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HANDOUT 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION

Kaplan reports that the shifting of the Earth’s magnetic fields, spurred by the drifting of the North Pole towards Russia, has prompted officials at the Florida airport to shut down their primary runway until January 13. The temporary closure will give them time to change their taxiway signs to account for the magnetic changes, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials told Fox News.

"The poles are generated by movements within the Earth’s inner and outer cores, though the exact process isn’t exactly understood. They’re also constantly in flux, moving a few degrees every year, but the changes are almost never of such a magnitude that runways require adjusting," Kaplan reported, citing FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto as a source.

The runway’s listing on aviation charts will be changed from 18R/36L (representing 180-degree approach from the north and the 360-degree approach from the south) to 19R/1L, according to various media sources.

When Kaplan asked Takemoto how often these kinds of adjustments were needed at airports, the FAA spokesman told him, "It happens so infrequently that they wouldn’t venture a guess”¦ In fact, you’re the first journalist to ever ask me about it." He was also quick to point out that passenger safety will not be an issue, but that the changes were needed "to make sure the precision is there that we need."

According to a Wednesday article in the Tampa Tribune, late this month, the airport’s east parallel runway and a seldom used east-west runway will also be closed so that officials can change signage to reflect their new designations as well.

"The Federal Aviation Administration required the runway designation change to account for what a National Geographic News report described as a gradual shift of the Earth’s magnetic pole at nearly 40 miles a year toward Russia because of magnetic changes in the core of the planet," the Florida newspaper’s website also said.

Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/1975752/magnetic_pole_shift_forces_runway_closure_ at_florida_airport/

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION Activity Process: Compare the two declination maps from 1995 and 2005.

Note three differences.

1. ___________________________________________________________ 2. ___________________________________________________________ 3. __________________________________________________________ 1995

2005

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION Step 2: Now look at the list of airports in your handouts and select five airports to investigate their runway designations. HINT: it will be more interesting if you pick a variety of airports from across the country.

Look at the 2005 Declination map above then based on the airport location, give an estimate what the airport’s north /south runway would be numbered.

Airport 1 _________________________ ____________ (name)

____________ (runway)

Airport 2 _________________________ ____________ (name)

____________ (runway)

Airport 3 _________________________ ____________ (name)

____________ (runway)

Airport 4 _________________________ ____________ (name)

____________ (runway)

Airport _________________________ ____________ (name)

____________ (runway)

Step 3: Airport Runway Record sheet: Working with your Airport Runway data table on page 54, enter the airports you have chosen into the table.

Next enter the airport’s coordinates into the NGDC. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/struts/calcDeclination Use the current date and choose “html” for the result format. Then click Calculate.

You will then get a map and declination.

Record the declination for your airports in two digits.

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION Follow the instructions to calculate the runway designation and then use Google maps to look up the airport. If you select satellite view, you will be able to zoom in and check the runway designation to see if the runway is marked correctly.

How to Calculate: Subtract the magnetic declination from the runway true heading for this airport __________________ - __________________ = ____________________ number by 10.

The rounded value is the actual runway number EXAMPLE: Airport Latitude

Example: SFO

37.619 N

Longitude

122.375 W

Declination

14

Runway 1

Divide the

Runway Number

Runway 2

True heading

True heading

Runway Number

298

28, 10

27

1, 19

Magnetic declination for the SFO airport on 01-26-2012 = 14° 4' 13" Runway 1: Subtract declination from the runway heading: 298 – 14 = 284 Divide the number by 10 = 28.4 The rounded value 28 is the actual runway number (the numbers at the ends of a runway always defers by 18). Hence the runway numbers for runway 1 are 28 and 10 Extension: Explain how the other end of the runway is labeled and how you might calculate that. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Checking for Understanding: Now can you do the math in reverse?

If the Runway for Boulder, Colorado is labeled 8 …. What is its geomagnetic declination? __________________________________________________________________________

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY WORKSHEET This is a great magnetic declination activity that has real world application that few people know about. As you discovered from the article you read, runway designations change over time because the magnetic poles slowly drift on the Earth's surface and the magnetic bearing will change. Depending on the airport location and how much drift takes place, it may be necessary over time to change the runway designation. As runways are designated with headings rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, this will affect some runways more than others.

As you explore different airports runway designations, you might actually find a few airports that have not relabeled their runways yet!

Here are a few questions to consider before you begin. This is a magnetic declination map for reference.

1. Do you think that airports in one geographical location of the Unites States would be more affected by magnetic poles drift than another?

2. List a few states that you think might be impacted more and why.

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY WORKSHEET Now Let’s Investigate Airport Runway Designation!

STEP 1: Estimate the Airport Runway Designation: Choose three or four airports from the data tables at the end of this activity. Consider choosing a small airport, a large airport and airports that are in different geographical locations across the country.

Using the Magnetic Declination Map below, estimate what a runway designation might be for each airport.

Airport 1 _________________________ (name)

_________________________ (runway)

Airport 2 _________________________ (name)

_________________________ (runway)

Airport 3 _________________________ (name)

_________________________ (runway)

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY WORKSHEET STEP 2: Now you will learn to calculate the runway designation and determine the runway number.

Look at the example below for the San Francisco Airport (SFO). Follow the instructions step by step.

Airport

Example: SFO

Latitude

37.619 N

Longitude

122.375 W

Declination

14

Runway 1

Runway Number

Runway 2

True heading

True heading

Runway Number

298

28, 10

27

1, 19

How to Calculate: Subtract the magnetic declination from the runway true heading for this airport __________________ - __________________ = ____________________ number by 10.

The rounded value is the actual runway number

Divide the

EXAMPLE: Runway 1: Magnetic declination for the SFO airport on 01-26-2012 = 14° 4' 13" Subtract declination from the runway heading: 298 – 14 = 284 Divide the number by 10 = 28.4 The rounded value 28 is the actual runway number (the numbers at the ends of a runway always defers by 18). Hence the runway numbers for Runway 1 are 28 and 10 Now let’s try to determine the runway numbers for Runway 2.

Magnetic declination for the SFO airport on 01-262012 = 14° 4' 13" Runway 2: 27 – 14 = 13 13/10 = 1.3 Hence runway numbers are 1 and 19 Verify: using Google Maps NOTE: The numbers at the ends of a runway always defers by 18.

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SESSION TWO: COURSE-SETTING AND COURSE-FOLLOWING Session Two: Course-Setting and Course Following Students will receive a hands-on introduction to using a compass, followed by an activity that allows them to set a course for other students and an opportunity to follow a course that other students have set.

NOTE: Adjustment for magnetic declination is not used in this activity because for these line-of-sight headings it is not necessary. As an optional enhancement, the instructor may have all teams add the declination to their headings, thus integrating this topic from the previous session.

Learning Objectives   

Students will use bearing compasses to identify headings to different objects.

Students will demonstrate setting a heading and distance for one leg of a journey using a bearing compass.

Students will demonstrate being able to follow a heading and distance to a destination using the bearing compass.

Skills Involved   

Distance calculation from strides to feet.

Use of bearing compass.

Construction of a navigation plan using heading and distance.

Instructor Preparation 

Before this session, instructor may go to the following website to determine the declination of the school: o http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp

Outline—Time Required is Approximately 90 Minutes o

o

Local Declination of School. Instructor informs students what the declination of the school is and poses the following question to start the session on compass use:  Given the declination of the school, what heading on the compass should you follow if you are to travel at 0 degrees?

Introduction to Compasses. Instructor passes out one bearing compass to each team of three students and goes over the features of the compass using Handout 2.1. (10 minutes) o Activity 2.1—Bearing Compass Use. Each team goes through this together. (10 minutes). o Group Report-Outs (What bearings did the teams get on the last page?) and Discussion (10 minutes) o Activity 2.2—Creating a Navigation Map to a Cache o Students will split into three-student teams, each using bearing compasses to construct a navigation route to a cache goal (30 minutes) o The teams will then exchange places and follow another team’s navigation instructions to find the cache (15 minutes). o Group Report-Outs (Were the headings hard to follow or easy?) and Discussion (15 minutes)

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SESSION TWO—COURSE-SETTING AND COURSE-FOLLOWING Equipment     

Copies of Handout 2.1 and Activities 2.1 and 2.2 for each student.

Bearing compass for each three-student team.

Two plastic containers per team (one for the directions and one for the cache) Goodies for cache, paper, and pencils Tape measure for each team

Instructor Notes:   

For the purposes of this activity, declination will be ignored.

If time allows, students may add a waypoint for a two-leg course. To do this, add another plastic container that includes a heading sheet (Handout 2) for the second leg.

This activity can be done outside or inside; ideally, the teams should be able to set up their course out of sight of the other teams.

Discussion Question What are some possible explanations for why the magnetic compass retains its original role as the basic navigational instrument despite its old age?

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HANDOUT 2.1—USING A COMPASS TO NAVIGATE Using a Compass to Navigate: The magnetized needle in a compass aligns itself with the magnetic field of the Earth. The red end of the needle points along the field towards the north. See the illustration below.

Image source: www.compassdude.com/compass-description.shtml

A compass is marked like a protractor, with 360 degrees marked around the edge. A navigation heading is the direction you travel, in degrees measured from the zero mark of due north. The four cardinal directions are as follows: North= 0 degrees East=90 degrees South=180 degrees West= 270 degrees When you are following a navigation course, you need to know two things: What heading on the compass should you follow? This is the direction in which you travel.

How far should you go? This is the distance you should travel.

For example, if your directions are to travel 1 mile at 90 degrees, you would be traveling 1 mile due east.

In order to know you are heading in the correct geographic direction, you will need to add or subtract the magnetic declination for your location from your desired geographic heading.

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ACTIVITY 2.1—BEARING COMPASS USE Bearing Compass Use Activity: In the example above, if the declination for your location is 10 degrees east, then you would add 10 degrees to your 90 degree compass heading, giving you a heading of 100 degrees that you would follow in order to be going geographically due east.

From the Compass Dude website—http://www.compassdude.com/compass-reading.shtml

No matter the compass, one end of the needle always points north. On our mountaineering compasses, it is almost always the RED end, but it’s a good idea to test your compass before starting to use it.

If you are north of the equator, stand facing the sun around lunchtime. Whichever end of the needle points towards the sun is South and the end that points at you is North.

Compass Reading Tips  Hold the compass level – if the compass is tilted, the needle will touch the clear lid and not move correctly.  Read the correct end of the needle.  Use common sense, such as knowing that if you are heading anywhere towards the sun, there’s no way you can be heading north, northwest, or northeast.  Keep the compass away from metal objects – even a knife, flashlight, or keychain can cause a false reading if too close to the compass.

To read your compass,   

Hold your compass steadily in your hand so the baseplate is level and the direction-of-travel arrow is pointing straight away from you.

Hold it about halfway between your face and waist in a comfortable arm position with your elbow bent and compass held close to your stomach.

Look down at the compass and see where the needle points.

This compass is pointing due North (also 0 degrees)



Turn your body while keeping the compass right in front of you.

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ACTIVITY 2.1—BEARING COMPASS USE 

Notice that as the compass rotates, the needle stays pointing the same direction. [The red end of the needle is always pointing to magnetic north.]



Keep turning until the red needle points East like the picture below, keeping the direction-oftravel arrow and North mark facing straight in front of you.

This compass is pointing East (90 degrees)



Important: This is a very common mistake! The compass needle is pointing towards East so I must be pointing East, right? No, no, no!

To find my direction, I must turn the compass dial until the North mark and the “Orienting Arrow” are lined up with the North end of the needle. Then I can read the heading that is at the Index Pointer spot (the butt of the direction-of-travel arrow).

Since the Orienting Arrow is usually two parallel lines on the floor of the compass housing, a good thing to memorize is: RED IN THE SHED (Note: Red in the Shed means that the red end of the needle is inside the two red lines marking North on the compass.)

Now we know we are really heading West (270 degrees)

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ACTIVITY 2. 2 CREATING A NAVIGATION MAP TO A CACHE Creating a Navigation Map to a Cache Activity: By simply moving your compass with your body and using the N-E-S-W markings, you can get a good idea which way you are going. This is often all you need from your compass. But, you’ve probably noticed on your compass, there are also numbers and tiny lines. These represent the 360 degrees in a circle that surrounds you no matter where you are.

When you need to find your way from one particular place to another, you need to use these numbers to find out the bearing to that remote place. The direction you are going is called your heading. ...

[Heading indicates the direction you are pointed towards when moving; bearing is the angle in degrees (clockwise) between your heading and a destination or point of reference.] The image above is a heading of about 250 degrees.

Using your compass, take a few bearings. Move your body until the direction-of-travel arrow points at the following items and then turn the dial until “RED is in the Shed”. Then, read the bearing at the Index Pointer:



Your computer screen: ____________________________ degrees



Your window: ___________________________________ degrees



Your door: _____________________________________ degrees



A light switch: __________________________________ degrees

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ACTIVITY 2. 2 CREATING A NAVIGATION MAP TO A CACHE Geocaching Process: 1) Split into teams of three students each.

2) Select one person as the distance-measurer. Measure their stride with a tape measure.

Use this to calculate the distance in feet of each heading along the route you plan. For example if Person A has a stride of 2 feet and the second cache is 40 strides away, then the distance for the team to travel along that heading is 80 feet.

3) Team will start with a plastic container that will be left at a home base point. In this container they will provide the other team with the heading and distance to the cache.

4) Team will work out a course heading to the waypoint cache and the distance required.

Write this on a piece of paper and put in the home base plastic container.

5) Using the bearing compass and your distance strider, pace out the position of the cache.

6) Place the goodie items in the plastic container at the destination cache.

7) Be sure to have a couple of people on each team test the heading and distance.

8) Teams will begin with the other team’s initial waypoint and follow to the cache using their bearing compass and their distance strider.

NOTE: If your location is hilly, this will affect your pacing measurements so make a note of it in your directions or calculate for it. Flat landscapes will work best.

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ACTIVITY 2. 2 CREATING A NAVIGATION MAP TO A CACHE

Once you have determined the heading and distance to your cache, place this sheet in the starting position so another team may follow your navigation instructions.

The directions to the cache are: Heading: _________________________________________ Distance: __________________________________________

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE Session Three: Background Material for Teachers The following aurora FAQ includes a one-sentence answer to each question, followed by a more extensive discussion around the topic.

Aurora FAQ by Dirk Lummerzheim, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks http://odin.gi.alaska.edu/FAQ/

1) What is an aurora?

An aurora is a luminous glow of the upper atmosphere which is caused by energetic particles that enter the atmosphere from above.

This definition differentiates aurora from other forms of airglow, and from sky brightness that is due to reflected or scattered sunlight. Airglow features that have "internal" energy sources are more common than aurora, for example lightening and all associated optical emissions like sprites should not be considered aurora.

On Earth, the energetic particles that make aurora come from the geospace environment, the magnetosphere.

These energetic particles are mostly electrons, but protons also make aurora. The electrons travel along magnetic field lines. The Earth's magnetic field looks like that of a dipole magnet where the field lines are coming out and going into the Earth near the poles. The auroral electrons are thus guided to the high latitude atmosphere. As they penetrate into the upper atmosphere, the chance of colliding with an atom or molecule increases the deeper they go. Once a collision takes place, the atom or molecule takes some of the energy of the energetic particle and stores it as internal energy while the electron goes on with a reduced speed. The process of storing energy in a molecule or atom is called "exciting" the atom. An excited atom or molecule can return to the non-excited state (ground state) by sending off a photon, i.e. by making light.

2) What makes the color of the aurora?

The composition and density of the atmosphere and the altitude of the aurora determine the possible light emissions.

When an excited atom or molecule returns to the ground state, it sends out a photon with a specific energy. This energy depends on the type of atom and on the level of excitement, and we perceive the energy of a photon as color. The upper atmosphere consists of air just like the air we breathe. At very high altitudes there is atomic oxygen in addition to normal air, which is made up of molecular nitrogen and molecular oxygen. The energetic electrons in aurora are strong enough to occasionally split the molecules of the air into nitrogen and oxygen atoms. The photons that come out of aurora have therefore the signature colors of nitrogen and oxygen molecules and atoms. Oxygen atoms, for example, strongly emit photons in two typical colors: green and red. The red is a brownish red that is at the limit of what the human eye can see, and although the red auroral emission is often very bright, we can barely see it.

Photographic film has a different sensitivity to colors than the eye, therefore you often see more red aurora on photos than with the unaided eye. Since there is more atomic oxygen at high altitudes, the red aurora tends to be on top of the regular green aurora. The colors that we see are a mixture of all the auroral emissions. Just like the white sunlight is a mixture of the colors of the rainbow, the aurora is a mixture of colors. The overall impression is a greenish-whitish glow. Very intense aurora gets a purple edge at the bottom. The purple is a mixture of blue and red emissions from nitrogen molecules.

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE The green emission from oxygen atoms has a peculiar thing about it: usually an excited atom or molecule returns to the ground state right away, and the emission of a photon is a matter of microseconds or less. The oxygen atom, however, takes its time. Only after about a 3/4 second does the excited atom return to the ground state to emit the green photon. For the red photon it takes almost 2 minutes! If the atom happens to collide with another air particle during this time, it might just turn its excitation energy over to the collision partner, and thus never radiate the photon. Collisions are more likely when the atmospheric gas is dense, so they happen more often the lower down we go. This is why the red color of oxygen only appears at the very top of an aurora, where collisions between air molecules and atoms are rare. Below about 100 km (60 miles) altitude even the green color doesn't get a chance. This happens when we see a purple lower border: the green emission gets quenched by collisions, and all that is left is the blue/red mixture of the molecular nitrogen emission.

3) What is the altitude of aurora?

The bottom edge is typically at 100km (60 miles) altitude.

The aurora extends over a very large altitude range. The altitude where the emission comes from depends on the energy of the energetic electrons that make the aurora. The more energy the bigger the punch, and the deeper the electron gets into the atmosphere. Very intense aurora from high energy electrons can be as low as 80 km (50 miles). The top of the visible aurora peters out at about 2-300 km (120-200 miles), but sometimes high altitude aurora can be seen as high as 600 km (350 miles). This is about the altitude at which the space shuttle usually flies.

4) What causes the aurora?

Energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere.

The immediate cause of aurora are precipitating energetic particles. These particles are electrons and protons that are energized in the near geospace environment. This energization process draws its energy from the interaction of the Earth's magnetosphere with the solar wind.

The magnetosphere is a volume of space that surrounds the Earth. We have this magnetosphere because of Earth's internal magnetic field. This field extends to space until it is balanced by the solar wind.

The solar wind is the outermost atmosphere of our sun. The sun is so hot that it boils off its outer layers, and the result is a constant outward expanding very thin gas. This solar wind consists not of atoms and molecules but of protons and electrons (this is called a plasma). Embedded in this solar wind is the magnetic field of the sun. The density is so low that we may well call it a vacuum. However tenuous it is, when this solar wind encounters a planet, it has to flow around it. When this planet has a magnetic field, the solar wind sees this magnetic field as an obstacle, as protons and electrons cannot move freely across a magnetic field. These charged particles are constrained to move almost always only along the magnetic field. Likewise, when they are forced to move in a specific direction, a magnetic field will move with them or will be bent into the direction of the flow. Whether the magnetic field forces the plasma motion or whether the plasma motion bends the magnetic field depends on the strength of the field and the force of the motion. When the solar wind encounters Earth's magnetic field, it will thus bend the field unless the field gets too strong. The strength of the magnetic field falls off with distance from Earth.

The distance at which the solar wind and the magnetic field of the Earth balance each other is about 10-12 Earth Radii (1 RE is 6371 km). For comparison, the moon is at about 60 RE, geostationary satellites are at about 6 RE. A plot that shows the actual distance in real-time can be found at this website. The inside of this volume that is bounded by the solar wind is called the magnetosphere.

At the interface of the solar wind and the magnetosphere, energy can be transferred into the magnetosphere by a number of processes. Most effective is a process called reconnection. When the magnetic field in the solar wind and the magnetic field of the magnetosphere are anti-parallel, the fields can melt together, and the solar wind can drag the magnetospheric field and plasma along. This is very efficient in energizing magnetospheric plasma.

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE Eventually, the magnetosphere responds by dumping electrons and protons into the high latitude upper atmosphere where the energy of the plasma can be dissipated. This then results in aurora. Here is an animation (1.6Mb) that illustrates this process.

5) Why does aurora have the shape of curtains?

The magnetic field confines the motion of auroral electrons. Think of it as painted magnetic field lines.

The electrons that make the aurora are charged particles, and they are not free to move in just any direction.

Magnetic fields impede motion of charged particles when they try to cross the magnetic field. Charged particles can move freely only parallel to the magnetic field (either in the direction of the field or against it). When the solar wind encounters the outer reaches of Earth's magnetic field, the field gets distorted by the motion of the plasma (see the previous question). Near the Earth the magnetic field is too strong and the motion of the electrons is guided by Earth's magnetic field. When an electron spirals along the magnetic field into the atmosphere, it stays on or near this field line even when it makes a collision. Therefore the aurora looks like rays or curtains.

6) How often is there aurora?

There is always some aurora at some place on Earth.

When the solar wind is calm, the aurora might only be at high latitudes and might be faint, but there is still aurora.

In order to see aurora, however, the sky must be dark and clear. Sunlight and clouds are the biggest obstacles to auroral observations. If you have a camera on a satellite you can look down on the aurora, and you'll find an oval shaped ring of brightness crowning Earth at all times. When the solar wind is perturbed from a recent flare or other event on the sun, we might get very strong aurora. After the solar wind has transferred a lot of energy into the magnetosphere, a sudden release of this built-up tension can cause an explosive auroral display. These large events are called substorms. A substorm usually starts with a slow expansion of the auroral oval followed by a sudden brightening of a small spot, called the auroral breakup. This spot usually is near that place of the auroral oval that is on the opposite side of the sun, which means near the place where midnight is. This brightening rapidly grows until the entire auroral oval is affected. An observer on the ground where this breakup occurs will see a sudden brightening of the aurora which may fill almost the entire sky within tens of seconds. This aurora will be in the shape of rapidly moving curtains. If you are under the auroral oval west of this breakup, you will see a bright aurora moving toward you from the east that might cover almost the entire sky and move from the eastern to western horizon within minutes. This aurora will often look like a huge spiral of curtains, with many smaller curls within the curtains. After these auroral curtains subside, the sky might be filled with diffuse patches of aurora that turn on and off. The whole substorm typically lasts between 30 and 90 minutes. During periods of high solar activity, we might have several substorms per night. On average, there are about 1500 substorms per year, but often there can be several days between substorms.

7) Where is the best place to see aurora? And what time is best?

The best places are high northern latitudes during the winter, Alaska, Canada, and Scandinavia.

To see aurora you need clear and dark sky. During very large auroral events, the aurora may be seen throughout the US and Europe, but these events are rare. During an extreme event in 1958, aurora was reported to be seen from Mexico City. During average activity levels, auroral displays will be overhead at high northern or southern latitudes. Places like Fairbanks, Alaska, Dawson City, Yukon, Yellowknife, NWT, Gillam, Manitoba, the southern tip of Greenland, Reykjavik, Iceland, Tromso, Norway, and the northern coast of Siberia have a good chance to have the aurora overhead. In North Dakota, Michigan, Quebec, and central Scandinavia, you might be able to see aurora on the northern horizon when activity picks up a little. On the southern hemisphere the aurora has to be fairly active before it can be seen from places other than Antarctica. Hobart, Tasmania, and the southern tip of New Zealand have about the same chance of seeing aurora as Vancouver, BC, South Dakota, Michigan,

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE Scotland, or St Petersburg. Fairly strong auroral activity is required for that. The best time to watch for aurora is around midnight, but aurora occurs throughout the night. There are very few places on Earth where one can see aurora during the day. Svalbard (Spitzbergen) is ideally located for this. For a 10 week period around winter solstice it is dark enough during the day to see aurora, and the latitude is such that near local noon the auroral oval is usually overhead.

Since clear sky and darkness are essential to see aurora, the best time is dictated by the weather, and by the sun rise and set times. The moon is also very bright, and should be taken into account when deciding on a period to travel for the purpose of auroral observation. You might see aurora from dusk to dawn throughout the night. The chances are higher for the 3 or 4 hours around midnight.

8) Do auroras occur on other planets? If so, which other planets?

If a planet has an atmosphere and is bombarded by energetic particles, it will have an aurora. Since all planets are embedded in the solar wind, all planets are subjected to the energetic particle bombardment, and thus all planets that have a dense enough atmosphere will have some sort of aurora. Planets like Venus, which has no magnetic field, have very irregular aurora, while planets like Earth, Jupiter, or Saturn, which have an intrinsic magnetic dipole field, have aurora in the shape of oval shaped crowns of light on both hemispheres. When the magnetic field of a planet is not aligned with the rotational axis, we get a very distorted auroral oval which might be near the equator, like on Uranus and Neptune. Some of the larger moons of the outer planets are also big enough to have an atmosphere, and some have a magnetic field. They are usually protected from the solar wind by the magnetosphere of the planet that they orbit, but since that magnetosphere also contains energetic particles, some of these moons also have aurorae.

9) Can you hear the aurora?

Maybe.

This is a difficult question to answer. It is easy to say that the aurora makes no audible sound. The upper atmosphere is too thin to carry sound waves, and the aurora is so far away that it would take a sound wave 5 minutes to travel from an overhead aurora to the ground. But many people claim that they hear something at the same time when there is aurora in the sky. I am aware of only one case where a microphone has been able to detect audible sound associated with aurora (Auroral Acoustics: the web site does not have sound samples, but you'll find a link to a very nice and in depth paper there). But one can not dismiss the many claims of people hearing something, and this is often described as whistling, hissing, bristling, or swooshing. What it is that gives people the sensation of hearing sound during auroral displays is an unanswered question. By searching for an answer to that question, we will probably learn more about the brain and how sensual perception works than about the aurora.

10) Are there auroral displays around the South Pole? How are they different?

Yes, there are, and they are just like the northern aurora.

On Earth, where the magnetic dipole field guides the energetic particles that make the aurora, we get an ovalshaped ring of aurora around the magnetic poles. The particles don't care whether they are going south or north along the magnetic field, so the aurora on the two hemispheres is the same. Of course, when the northern hemisphere has winter and the darkness that's needed to see the aurora, the south pole has bright daylight all day long. So it is only during fall and spring that a person in Antarctica could get on the phone to call someone in Alaska to find out if the aurora looks the same.

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE 11) What is proton aurora?

A diffuse auroral glow caused by precipitating energetic protons, usually too dark to be visible.

Most visible aurora comes from precipitating electrons. However, the magnetosphere also shoots energetic protons toward the atmosphere. Both electrons and protons are charged particles, and they are not free to move in just any direction (see question 6). The curtain shapes of aurora results from this restriction on the motion of charged particles. When an electron spirals along the magnetic field into the atmosphere, it stays on or near this field line even when it makes a collision. Therefore the aurora looks like rays or curtains. When a proton spirals into the atmosphere along a field line it is just as restricted in its motion. In a collision, however, the proton can catch an electron from the atom or molecule that it collides with, and it is then a neutral hydrogen atom (i.e. a proton and an electron bound together). This hydrogen atom is free to travel in any direction, independent of the magnetic field. It may again turn into a proton in a subsequent collision, and be bound to travel along the direction of the magnetic field. This process can repeat itself several times before all the energy of the initial proton is spent. The effect of this meandering path is that the proton aurora is spread out and gives a very diffuse glow rather than the confined curtains of electron aurora. Because it is so spread out, proton aurora is usually not bright enough to be visible to the human eye. Sensitive instruments and cameras, however, can see this aurora.

12) What is black aurora?

Gaps between diffuse aurora.

Sometimes you can have diffuse auroral curtains and arcs that have small gaps. These gaps are usually thinner than the arc thickness next to the gap, and they look like a black auroral curtain embedded in the bright auroral glow around them. The black auroras can have curls and other structure. The sense of direction of these curls is opposite to that of regular auroral curtains. Most likely, the electric fields that are present in the upper ionosphere or lower magnetosphere prevent electrons from reaching the atmosphere, or even turn precipitating electrons around.

13) Can you predict when and where there will be aurora?

Yes, but with less confidence than weather prediction.

The ultimate energy source for the aurora is the solar wind. When the solar wind is calm, we tend to have very little aurora, when the solar wind is very strong and perturbed, we have a chance of intense aurora. The sun turns on its own axis once every 27 days, so an active region that produced perturbations might again cause aurora 27 days later. The solar wind takes a few (2-3) days to get here on its way from the sun. Observing the sun, and predicting perturbations in the solar wind from events on the sun (such as flares or coronal mass ejections) can thus give you about a 2-3 days advance prediction. To see a movie of the solar wind click on the image (1.1 Mb mpeg). The accuracy of the prediction depends on how well we understand the solar wind. About an hour before the solar wind reaches us, it passes by a satellite that sends its data back to us. That would give us about 1-2 hours warning of an upcoming aurora. The accuracy of that prediction depends on how well we understand the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetosphere, and the inner workings of the magnetosphere. There are also satellites inside the magnetosphere which can tell us how the magnetosphere responds to the solar wind.

This will only give a prediction a few minutes into the future. All of these predictions are for the global aurora. It is very difficult to predict aurora for a given location.

Looking at the sun, and trying a 2-3 day prediction usually only tells us the probability and the time when an event will occur within a few hours, and we may estimate the size of the auroral oval. That means we may be able to say that the aurora is likely to reach a certain latitude, and that this event will start at a certain time.

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE Using satellite data from the solar wind for a 1-2 hour prediction, we may also see if the conditions for a substorm are right. In that case we may be able to predict the occurrence of a substorm and predict an estimate of the intensity of an aurora.

Watching the satellite observations from inside the magnetosphere, we can refine the intensity and timing of an expected substorm. You can also watch the sky, and if you see typical substorm behavior, for example, a dim and diffuse aurora that slowly moves south, you can predict an auroral breakup a few minutes into the future.

14) Does the aurora have any effect on the environment?

Yes, but limited to the high altitude atmosphere.

Since the aurora takes place at about 90-100 km altitude, only the atmosphere at or above that height is affected by aurora. Some ionization may occur a few tens of kilometers further down, and can have effects on radio wave propagation. Ham radio operators may find that at some frequencies, radio waves will not propagate far. The major effect of the aurora is, however, at the altitude range of 100-200 km. The precipitating particles that cause the light also cause ionization and heating of the ambient atmosphere. The ionization has the consequence that the electric properties of the atmosphere change, and currents can flow more easily. Aside from the charged particles that cause the light of the aurora, there are currents flowing between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere inside and in the vicinity of the aurora. These currents also contribute to the heating of the atmospheric gas at auroral altitudes. The heating from these currents is usually much more than by the particle precipitation itself. Once the gas in the aurora is heated, it wants to rise, so that convection can be driven by the aurora.

The currents in aurora not only flow vertically. A current has to be a closed loop, so there are currents flowing to and from the magnetosphere and horizontally in the vicinity of aurora as well. The currents in and around aurora are actually charged particles that move; positive charges in one direction, negative in the other. These moving particles can collide with the neutral gas of the upper atmosphere and drag the gas along. This means that not only vertical convection will be caused by the aurora, but also horizontal winds.

Although the change in temperature and wind inside and near the aurora can be very large, at some altitudes the temperature can rise to its tenfold value, and the wind can blow at several hundred meters per second (more than 1000 mph), none of these disturbances reach down to where the weather takes place. There is some speculation that long term changes in space weather, i.e. long-term effects of aurora and similar phenomena, may influence the long-term variation of the climate on Earth. This is the subject of ongoing research.

Other phenomena associated with aurora are perturbations in the magnetic field of the Earth. When we have a strong substorm, the magnetic field under the aurora can be decreased by as much as a few percent of its value.

That, by the way, is the reason that these strong auroral events are called "substorms": Earth experiences occasional magnetic storms, which are global changes in the magnetic field. The auroral substorm is a similar change in the magnetic field, but only happens on a smaller scale limited to the polar regions, thus they are "sub"storms.

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BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR TEACHERS—SESSION THREE Legends of the Aurora Excerpted from http://www.gi.alaska.edu/asahi/hist01.htm

Every Northern culture has oral legends about the aurora, passed down for generations. The Eskimos, Athabaskan Indians, Lapps, Greenlanders, and Northwest Indian tribes were familiar with this mysterious light in the sky.

True heavens Ancient Eskimo stories are often associated with notions of life after death. Some thought that the aurora was a narrow torch lit pathway for departed souls going to heaven. Others thought spirits happily playing soccer with a walrus skull caused the aurora.

Powerful spirit To some cultures, the aurora was almost a living entity. Waving white handkerchiefs, whistling, or spitting at it would make it change shape. The elders of Barrow, Alaska recall wielding knives to fend off the aurora in case it tried to carry them away. To the Iglulik Eskimo, arsharneq or arshät was a powerful spirit who assisted shamans.

Fearful omens Where aurora were rare, their appearance portended omens, much like comets or meteor showers did.

People living far from the Arctic can only see the aurora on the rare occasion that it is powerful enough to reach their latitude. In these cases, the lower portion may be obscured by the curve of the earth and only the upper red portion visible. People were often horrified to see the northern sky glow the color of blood, believing it to be a harbinger of disaster or war.

The philosopher Seneca wrote of Romans during a rare, red aurora rushing off to save the port of Ostia thinking the town was ablaze. In 1583, thousands of French villagers made pilgrimages to the church in Paris after seeing "warnings from Heaven" and "fire in the air."

Violent battles The aurora was also associated with battles; people imagined they saw warriors wielding drawn swords or spears clashing in the sky. The bible contains several accounts of visions that can probably be attributed to the aurora.

As late as 1716, tenants of the Earl of Derwentwater saw visions of his execution in a particularly bright, active aurora. Afterward, the aurora was known locally as Lord Derwentwater's Lights.

The King's Mirror This famous Norwegian work was written in the mid 13th century. A prince interviews his father, the king, on various topics including the source of the northern lights. What makes this particular work interesting is that the aurora is discussed as a natural phenomenon rather than a mystical, supernatural one.

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SESSION THREE—SOLAR ACTIVITY AND THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD Session Three: Solar Activity and the Earth’s Magnetic Field Lesson Overview: Students will receive an overview of the interaction between solar activity and the Earth’s magnetic field. Effects on Earth of solar activity include aurora and electromagnetic field disruptions. Scientists monitor space weather in order to predict events and help people be ready for them.

Learning objectives: 

Students will understand that solar activity affects Earth’s geomagnetic field.



Students will understand that auroras are caused by interaction between particles in the Earth’s magnetic field and molecules in the upper atmosphere.



Students will be able to list several issues affecting human society that can be influenced by space weather, including power supply problems, communication disruptions, and navigation system problems..

Outline—Time Required is Approximately 60 Minutes 

Introduction to the geomagnetic field and the effect it has on interplanetary particles given off by the Sun. o Preparation: Set up aurora video on program DVD for projection during this session. o Introduction to Space Weather. Using handouts 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, plus background information, instructor presents overview of how the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with high energy particles and how activity on the Sun can interfere with various human activities as well as producing the aurora. (15 minutes) o Guest visit by Dr. Stefan Maus and Aurora Video. Dr Maus will introduce himself and present the aurora video 10 minutes). o Brief question and answer period with Dr. Maus (10 minutes). Discussion questions can be drawn from teacher background section. o Activity 3.1—How Far South Can Aurora Be Seen? Instructor introduces this activity for plotting the locations of aurora reports for a significant geomagnetic storm. (15 minutes) o Optional Activity 3.2 is available if time and equipment allows. This will give students experience with the website maintained by the Space Weather Prediction Center, which they will visit on the field trip. o Group Report-Outs on Activity and Discussion (10 minutes)

Equipment  

Copies of Handouts 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, and Activity 3.1 for each student.

Aurora video cued up and ready to project.

Terminology Magnetosphere: Earth’s magnetosphere is a region in space whose shape is determined by the Earth's internal magnetic field, the solar wind, and the interplanetary magnetic field.

Solar wind: A stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. Solar Flare: A violent explosion in the Sun's atmosphere.

Coronal Mass Ejection (CME): An ejection of material from the outer solar atmosphere.

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HANDOUT 3.1--SPACE WEATHER STARTS

AT THE

SUN

Space Weather Starts at the Sun: Adapted from Windows to the Universe (http://www.windows.ucar.edu)

When you hear someone talk about "space weather", they are discussing conditions in space that change from time to time. Sometimes the Sun gives off more radiation, sometimes it gives off less. A flow of charged particles called the "solar wind" constantly streams outward from the Sun. Space is filled with magnetic fields, which control the motions of charged particles. The strengths and directions of the magnetic fields often shift. Changes in radiation, the solar wind, magnetic fields, and other factors make up space weather, just like changes in temperature, rainfall, and winds make up weather on Earth. The image below shows how the solar wind is bent around Earth due to Earth’s magnetic field.

Image courtesy NASA.

When space weather from the Sun reaches Earth, it runs into our planet's magnetic field and its atmosphere. Earth is surrounded by a sort of magnetic bubble called the "magnetosphere". How do space weather storms affect Earth? Partly this depends on what the storms from the Sun are like. But it also depends on how those storms flow around and through Earth's magnetosphere.

Most of space weather around Earth starts at the Sun. Sometimes there are storms on the Sun, called solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These storms fling showers of radiation and powerful magnetic fields outward through our Solar System. Most storms miss Earth completely, but some storms hit our home planet. Those are the space weather storms we care about the most. The timeseries image below shows a large CME erupting off the surface of the sun.

Image courtesy High Altitude Observatory

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HANDOUT 3.2--SPACE WEATHER AND PEOPLE - WHY SHOULD I CARE? Space Weather and People – Why Should I Care?

Why are people interested in space weather? Radiation from space weather storms can damage satellites, like the ones used for cell phone communications. That radiation can also harm astronauts, or even people flying on some kinds of jet airplanes. Really powerful space weather storms can even knock out the electricity over large areas.

The table below shows some of the human activities that can be disrupted by solar and geomagnetic events.

Solar Activity

Human Activities Impacted

Geomagnetic Solar Radio Activity Interference

Satellite operations – Cell phones, television broadcasts, ground-tospacecraft communications

X

Aviation Navigation

X

High-altitude polar flights

X

Electric Power Distribution

X

Long-line telephone communications

X

Pipeline operations

X

Geophysical exploration

X

Scientific satellite studies - Shuttle, Spacelab, solar physics, solar constant measurement, ozone variation, interplanetary missions

X

X

Scientific rocket studies - Sun, magnetosphere, ionosphere, upper atmosphere

X

X

Scientific ground studies - Sun, interplanetary medium, magnetosphere, troposphere; geomagnetic, seismological, biological

X

X

X

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HANDOUT 3.3--SPACE WEATHER—THE AURORA Space Weather – The Aurora: But not everything about space weather is bad. Effects of space weather can be beautiful, too. When radiation from a storm crashes into our atmosphere, it sometimes creates beautiful colorful light shows in the night sky—the aurora. Auroras are caused by the bombardment of solar electrons on oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The electrons excite the oxygen and nitrogen atoms high in the atmosphere to create the beautiful light show we know as an aurora.

Auroras are like neon lights! Neon lights work by exciting gases inside of a tube with electricity. In an aurora, the different colors you see are the different wavelengths of light from gases high in the atmosphere. The figure below illustrates how when electrons hit air molecules (the purple blobs), the air molecules get electromagnetically excited. As the molecules’ excitation energy is lost, they emit light (the green rays in the figure) which we see as aurora.

Image above courtesy: NASA; Image below copyright Tom Eklund, courtesy UCAR COMET Program

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HANDOUT 3.4--WHERE EXACTLY ARE

THE

AURORA?

Where Exactly Are the Aurora?

Image above courtesy: Tom Eklund

The lower edge of a typical green aurora is around 95 km in altitude. The top of the aurora may extend hundreds of kilometers up into the atmosphere.

The colors in the aurora can indicate different heights. If the green aurora has a pinkish lower edge from an emission of molecular nitrogen, its altitude may be around 80 km. The rare pure red auroras occur at higher levels of the atmosphere--300 to 500 kilometers. In these red auroras, electrons are moving too slowly to penetrate deeply into the atmosphere. They excite oxygen which glows with a pure red. Often when a green aurora is observed from earth, there is actually a red component, too, that is higher in the atmosphere. But because it is fainter and human eyes more readily pick up green light, the red behind the green is often not seen.

In the photograph below from the space shuttle, you can easily see the red aurora high in the atmosphere with the green aurora closer to the ground.

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HANDOUT 3.4--WHERE EXACTLY ARE

THE

AURORA?

Aurora from the Space Shuttle; source NASA

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ACTIVITY 3.1—HOW FAR SOUTH CAN AURORA BE SEEN? How Far South Can the Aurora be Seen Activity: A report on the 7/91 aurora by Lee Siegel http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/solar_storm_aftermath_000716.html

In July 1991 Earth was blasted by one of the most extreme magnetic storms of that 11-year solar cycle.

The storms caused problems for satellites, triggered voltage fluctuations in some electric power systems, blacked out radio communications for commercial fishing boats and made the northern lights visible at mid latitudes.

Both storms resulted from a major solar flare that erupted Friday July 14 from an active sunspot region.

Within 20 minutes, the flare started blasting space around Earth with an intense barrage of protons known as a solar radiation storm. The flare also triggered a mass ejection of electrified gas from the sun's outer atmosphere, hurling the material toward Earth. It hit at 10:40 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (14:40 GMT) Saturday, triggering a geomagnetic storm that reached category G5, or extreme levels, over high and mid latitudes later in the day.

During the storms, solar wind speeds at times reached 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) per second, which is equal to 2.24 million m.p.h. (3.6 million kilometers per hour) -- roughly twice the normal speed of the solar wind. *******

Step 1 Each city in the following table is a location where the aurora was viewed. Notice the city name is followed by its latitude and longitude. Use the latitude and longitude values to mark a small “x” on the additional map handout where each sighting was recorded on the map of the continental United States (Activity 2.2).

City

State

Latitude

N/S

Longitude

E/W

Harrison Anza Wrightwood Champaign Rio Rancho Las Vegas Pittsburgh El Paso Lubbock Seminole Fillmore

AR

36.2

N

93.1

W

CA

33.1

N

116.3

W

CA

34.3

N

117.6

W

IL

40.1

N

88.2

W

NM

35.2

N

106.6

W

NV

36.2

N

115.2

W

PA

40.4

N

79.9

W

TX

31.9

N

106.5

W

TX

33.5

N

101.8

W

TX

32.7

N

102.6

W

UT

38.9

N

112.3

W

Do you think this aurora was seen in Denver? _____________________________________ Why or why not? ____________________________________________________________ What was the farthest south sighting? ___________________________________________ 78 CIRES Education and Outreach

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ACTIVITY 3.1—MAP FOR PLOTTING AURORA VIEWINGS OF 1991

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ACTIVITY 3.1—HOW DOES 1991’S STORM COMPARE TO THE NORM? Step 2) The following image was created with Google Earth using NOAA map data for potential aurora viewing areas. The yellow areas near the pole are the most likely areas for viewing aurora. The light blue shaded areas are less likely.

Image source: Google Earth

Comparing your map to the above image, what conclusions could you make about the aurora of July 1991? _________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

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OPTIONAL ACTIVITY 3.2—SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER (SWPC) Space Weather Prediction Center Activity: SWPC's Space Weather Operations branch (SWO) is the national and world warning center for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in the space environment. Jointly operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force, SWO provides forecasts and warnings of solar and geomagnetic activity to users in government, industry, and the private sector. SWO continuously monitors, analyzes, and forecasts the environment between the Sun and Earth. The Center receives solar and geophysical data in real time from a large number of groundbased observatories and satellite sensors around the world. SWO forecasters use these data to predict solar and geomagnetic activity and issue worldwide alerts of extreme events.

What is today’s space weather forecast?

Go to http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ and answer the following questions: Using the Satellite Displays/POES Auroral Maps 

What level is the aurora activity? ________________________________________________



Is this high, medium, or low activity? _____________________________________________



Looking at the Northern Hemisphere Movie, describe the farthest south the polar oval extends during the covered period. ___________________________________________________________________________

Using Popular Pages/Today’s Space Weather 

What is the level of geomagnetic storms? ________________________________________

Using Popular Pages/3-day Report & Forecast 

What is the solar activity forecast for the next three days? ___________________________________________________________________________

Using Popular Pages/Tips on Viewing the Aurora 

What Kp Index is needed to see the aurora at midnight in Denver? __________________________________________________________________________



What NOAA POES Auroral Activity Level is needed to see the aurora at midnight in Denver? __________________________________________________________________________



Why might YOU might be interested in using information from this website in your daily life?

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SESSION FOUR-- FIELD TRIP NOAA’S DAVID SKAGGS RESEARCH CENTER Session Four: Field Trip to NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center

This field trip will be a guided tour of the Space Weather Predictions Center, where students will see live real-time data of the geomagnetic field. Another stop will give the students an opportunity to view the Science on a Sphere (SOS) exhibit facility which can project the Earth’s geomagnetic field on a suspended sphere as well as showing solar activity and satellite views of Earth.

For all school tours and special group tours, please call 303-497-4091.

Tours of the David Skaggs Research Center last approximately 1.5 hours and include stops at the Space Weather Prediction Center, ESRL Global Monitoring Division for information on the carbon dioxide record, the National Weather Service Forecast Office, and Science On a Sphere.

Visit the NOAA link for more information: http://www.boulder.noaa.gov/?q=node/3 Students may complete Handout 4.1 during their trip to the facility to stimulate discussion.

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HANDOUT 4.1—WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? NOAA – What is going on here?

On your trip to the David Skaggs Research Center, fill in the items below.

What does NOAA stand for?

N_________________________________________________________ O_________________________________________________________ A_________________________________________________________ A_________________________________________________________

What kind of commercial airline flights are the most dependent on the Space Weather Prediction Center and why?

__________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________

Where in Hawaii do space weather forecasters get some of their data from?

__________________________________________________________________________

How many hours a day does the Space Weather Prediction Center stay open to provide data? __________________________________________________________________________

What was the most interesting thing you saw at Science on a Sphere?

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Thank you for using the CIRES Education Outreach MESA Geomag Curriculum!

Resources: NOAA Geomagnetism website: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/geomag.shtml NOAA Magnetic Field Calculators http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#declination

For more information please visit: http://cires.colorado.edu/education/outreach/

Questions or Comments can be sent to: outreach@cires.colorado.edu

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ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DATA SHEET

Airport

Latitude

Longitude

Runway 1

Runway 2

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Alabama Birmingham Airport

33.564 N

86.752 W

55

235

35.471 N

93.427 W

95

275

33.623 N

111.911 W

44

224

32.734 N

117.19 W

106

286

39.862 N

104.673 W

180

001

28.777 N

81.236 W

90

270

41.982 N

87.907 W

90

270

41.534 N

93.663 W

54

234

37.928 N

100.724 W

180

000

37.686 N

85.925 W

47

227

30.533 N

91.15 W

43

223

44.321 N 44.807 N

69.797 W 68.828 W

153 134

333 314

Arkansas Clarksville Municipal Airport

Arizona Scottsdale Airport

California San Diego International Airport

Colorado Denver International Airport

Florida Orlando Sanford International Airport

Illinois Chicago O’Hare International Airport

Iowa Des Moines International Airport

Kansas Garden City Regional Airport

Kentucky Addington Field Airport

Louisiana Baton Rouge Metropolitan

Maine Augusta State Airport Bangor Intl Airport

Source: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx

ACTIVITY 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DATA SHEET

Airport

Latitude

Longitude

Runway 1

Runway 2

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Michigan Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport Capital Region Intl Airport

42.212 N

83.353 W

29

209

42.779 N

84.586 W

91

271

33.761 N

90.758 W

178

358

38.749 N

90.37 W

122

302

39.458 N

74.577 W

118

298

43.119 N

77.672 W

31

211

46.773 N

100.746 W

138

318

41.012 N

83.669 W

180

000

45.589 N

122.597 W

119

299

36.022 N

102.547 W

180

360

37.505 N

77.32 W

147

327

46.154 N

89.212 W

143

323

Mississippi Cleveland Municipal Airport

Missouri Lambert-St Louis International Airport

New Jersey Atlantic City Intl Airport

New York Greater Rochester International Airport

North Dakota Bismark Municipal Airport

Ohio Findley Airport

Oregon Portland International Airport

Texas Dalhart Municipal Airport

Virginia Richmond Intl Airport

Wisconsin Kings Land O’ Lakes Airport

Source: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx

LESSON 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION TEACHER ANSWER GUIDE

Airport

Alabama Birmingham Airport Arkansas Clarksville Municipal Airport Arizona Scottsdale Airport California San Diego International Airport Colorado Denver International Airport Boulder Municipal Airport Florida Orlando Sanford International Airport Illinois Chicago O’Hare International Airport Iowa Des Moines International Airport Kansas Garden City Regional Airport Kentucky Addington Field Airport

Latitude

Longitude

Runway 1

Runway 2

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Declination

Runway 1 Number

Runway 2 Number

33.564 N

86.752 W

55

235

3W

06

24

35.471 N

93.427 W

95

275

4E

09

27

33.623 N

111.911 W

44

224

12E

03

21

32.734 N

117.19 W

106

286

14E

09

27

39.862 N 40.039 N

104.673 W 105.226 W

180 N/A

001 N/A

11E 12E

16 08

34 26

28.777 N

81.236 W

90

270

5W

09

27

41.982 N

87.907 W

90

270

3W

10

28

41.534 N

93.663 W

54

234

3E

05

23

37.928 N

100.724 W

180

000

9E

17

35

37.686 N

85.925 W

47

227

3W

05

23

Source: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx

LESSON 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION TEACHER ANSWER GUIDE

Airport

Louisiana Baton Rouge Metropolitan Maine Augusta State Airport Bangor International Airport Michigan Capitol Region Intl Airport Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport Mississippi Cleveland Municipal Airport Missouri Lambert-St Louis International Airport New Jersey Atlantic City International Airport New Mexico Double Eagle Ii Airport New York Greater Rochester International Airport North Dakota Bismark Municipal Airport

Latitude

Longitude

Runway 1 True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Runway 2 True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Magnetic Variation

Runway 1 Number

Runway 2 Number

30.533 N

91.15 W

43

223

3E

04

22

44.321 N 44.807 N

69.797 W 68.828 W

153 134

333 314

18W 19W

17

35

42.212 N 42.212 N

83.353 W 83.353 W

29 29

271 209

5W 6W

10 04

28 22

33.761 N

90.758 W

178

358

0E

17

35

38.749 N

90.37 W

122

302

0E

12

30

39.458 N

74.577 W

118

298

10W

13

31

35.145 N

106.795 W

046

226

11E

04

22

43.119 N

77.672 W

31

211

10W

04

22

46.773 N

100.746 W

138

318

7E

13

31

Source: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx

LESSON 1.7 – AIRPORT RUNWAY DECLINATION TEACHER ANSWER GUIDE

Airport

Ohio Findley Airport Oregon Portland International Airport Texas Dalhart Municipal Airport Virginia Richmond International Airport Wisconsin Kings Land O’ Lakes Airport

Latitude

Longitude

Runway 1

Runway 2

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

True Heading (In degrees, Geographic)

Declination

Runway 1 Number

Runway 2 Number

41.012 N

83.669 W

180

000

5W

18

36

45.589 N

122.597 W

119

299

20E

10

28

36.022 N

102.547 W

180

360

9E

17

35

37.505 N

77.32 W

147

327

9W

16

34

46.154 N

89.212 W

143

323

2W

14

32

NOTE: Students who enjoy this activity might be interested in looking for patterns. For Example there are a lot of Airports with the bearing of 180 and 000, or runways numbered 04 and 22. You could expand this lesson so students are looking up more airports to find patterns.

Source: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx

Aurora Brochure

6/11/02

7:50 AM

Page 1

Why is the aurora important?

Popular myths about the aurora

The aurora is the only visible evidence that the Sun and the Earth are a system connected by more than sunlight.

The following are common misconceptions about the aurora: • Auroras are caused by sunlight reflecting off of the polar ice cap.

• Auroras are caused by moonlight reflecting off of ice crystals in the atmosphere.

• Auroras are caused by electrons arriving directly from the Sun and guided by Earth’s magnetic field into the polar atmosphere.

The Sun’s corona continuously emits a solar wind, a stream of electrically charged particles (mostly protons and electrons) flowing out in all directions. These particles interact with Earth's magnetic field (right side of figure), which reaches far into space. Most of the particles from the Sun are deflected by the magnetic field, creating a huge cavity in the solar wind. This cavity is called the magnetosphere, and it stretches about 60,000 kilometers on the day side (toward the Sun) and several hundred thousand kilometers in a long tail on the night side. .

In any of these cases, the aurora would look very different from the beautiful displays we see.

Steele Hill

About Polar

For more information:

Under certain conditions more of the energy carried by the solar wind can enter the magnetosphere. Here the energy is converted into electric currents and electromagnetic energy and temporarily stored.

NASA

NASA’s Polar spacecraft was launched on February 24, 1996, to obtain data from the regions over the poles of the Earth. From an orbit that carries it over both poles at least once a day, the spacecraft gathers images of the aurora and studies Earth’s interaction with the solar wind, , as well as the physical processes that transfer particles and energy into and through the magnetosphere. http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/polar

Web sources:

The Exploration of the Earth’s Magnetosphere http://www.phy6.org/Education/Intro.html The Aurora Explained http://www.alaskascience.com/aurora.htm Windows to the Universe http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spaceweather/ Mission to Geospace http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach

This higher energy state of the magnetosphere is unstable and the energy of the currents can be released suddenly. Some of this energy accelerates electrons in the magnetosphere and causes them to spiral down the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere, where they produce the aurora. By studying the patterns of auroral light, scientists can obtain a picture of what is happening in the huge magnetosphere.

Do other planets have auroras?

Auroras have been observed on Saturn (image), Jupiter, and Uranus. Any planet with a magnetic field and an atmosphere should likely have auroras.

J.T. Trauger (JPL) and NASA

Print sources:

Asgeir Brekke and Alv Egeland. The Northern Light: From Mythology to Space Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983.

Michael Carlowicz and Ramon Lopez. Storms from the Sun - The Emerging Science of Space Weather. Washington, DC: The Joseph Henry Press, 2002.

Robert Eather. Majestic Lights: The Aurora in Science, History, and the Arts.

Washington, DC: AGU, 1980.

Sten Odenwald. The 23rd Cycle - Learning to Live with a Stormy Star. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Kenny Taylor. Auroras, Earth’s Grand Show of Lights. National Geographic, 200(5), 2001.

NP-2002-5-459-GSFC

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 Polar Mission, Mail Code 696

Page 2

Why the different colors?

The typical “northern lights,” or aurora borealis, are caused by collisions between fast-moving electrons and the oxygen and nitrogen in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The electrons - which come from the magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by Earth’s magnetic field - transfer energy to the oxygen and nitrogen gases, making them “excited.” As they “calm down” and return to their normal state, they emit photons, small bursts of energy in the form of light.

Polar/VIS, NASA/U. Iowa

Auroras usually occur in ringshaped areas circling the magnetic poles of the Earth.

The rings expand and contract with the level of auroral activity. The best places to see auroras are in central Canada, Alaska, and Greenland, northern Scandinavia and northern Russia.

On rare occasions, they can be seen as far south as Florida or Texas. An entire ring, called the auroral oval, can only be seen from outer space. This image was taken in ultraviolet light by NASA’s Polar satellite and superimposed on a figure of a partly sunlit Earth.

Do auroras exist in the southern hemisphere?

Why the different shapes?

Jan Curtis

Scientists are still trying to answer this question. The shape of the aurora depends on the source of the electrons in the magnetosphere and on the processes that cause the electrons to precipitate into the atmosphere. Dramatically different shapes can be seen over the course of a single night.

Can you hear the aurora?

Jan Curtis

When a large number of these collisions occur, the oxygen and nitrogen can emit enough light for the eye to detect. This ghostly light will produce the dance of colors in the night sky we call the aurora. Most of the light comes from altitudes between 60 and 200 miles. Since the aurora is much dimmer than sunlight, it cannot be seen from the ground in the daytime.

Yes - an auroral oval also exists around the southern magnetic pole (known as aurora australis). This picture from the Polar spacecraft in ultraviolet light shows the simultaneous “crowns” of the ovals. Simultaneous ovals are nearly mirror images of each other.

Polar/VIS, NASA/U. Iowa

Jan Curtis

The color of the aurora depends on which gas oxygen or nitrogen - is being excited by the electrons, and on how excited it becomes. Oxygen

emits either a greenish-yellow light (the most familiar color of the aurora) or a red light; nitrogen generally gives off a blue light. The blending of these colors can also produce purples, pinks, and white. The oxygen and nitrogen also emit ultraviolet light, which can be detected by special cameras on satellites but not by the human eye.

What causes the aurora?

Where can the aurora be seen?

Jan Curtis

7:50 AM

Jan Curtis

6/11/02

Michel Tournay

Aurora Brochure

Observers have speculated about this for hundreds of years, noting that they have heard crackling, swishing, and hissing sounds. But the air where auroras are formed is too thin to even conduct sound, and scientists have been unable to detect any.

Background image: Jan Curtis