What are southern lights?

The southern lights are beautiful colors that dance across the sky at night, just like a rainbow made by a giant wave.

Imagine you're playing with a magnet and some paper clips, when you move the magnet close, the paper clips jump around. That's kind of what happens up high in space. The Earth has a magnet, too, and it interacts with tiny bits of electricity from the sun called solar wind. When they meet, they cause a big shuffle of electricity above the South Pole.

These electric shuffles make the air above the pole light up in colors, sometimes green, sometimes red or purple. It's like when you rub a balloon on your hair and then it sticks to the wall, except this is happening way up high, and it lights up the sky instead!

So next time you see the southern lights, imagine it’s like a giant, glowing game of paper clips jumping around in the sky, only much more beautiful!