Name ______________________________________ Date __________________ PD ______________ Aurora Alive Webquest
Directions: Use this worksheet as a guide to extract aurora facts from the following website: http://www.auroraalive.com/multimedia.html Part 1 ­Aurora Legends 1. Native Elders in Alaska’s lower Yukon say that _____________________ create the aurora. 2. Native Elders in Alaska, Canada, Denmark, Greenland and Siberia say that the aurora is created by spirits playing soccer with a ___________________________. 3. In Southeastern Alaska people believe the aurora was a sign that someone would 4. Inupiat Elders in Noatak, Alaska say whistling and hollering at the aurora makes it do what? 5. What do aurora legends explain? Part 2 – Magnetic Earth 6. The core of Earth is made up of what two materials? _____________ and ____________ 7. Molten rock is so hot it behaves like a ____________________________. 8. Objects made of __________________, ____________________ or _________________ are attracted to magnetic fields. 9. The pull of a bar magnet and Earth’s magnetic field is strongest at its ________________. 10. Earth’s invisible magnetic field lines are similar to the magnetic field lines around a ____________ 11. The top of Earth’s rotation axis is called the _________________________ north pole. 12. The top of Earth’s magnetic axis is called the _________________________ north pole. 13. Earth’s geomagnetic north pole is located near __________________________________. Part 3 – Powerful Sun 14. What are the dark spots on the surface of the sun that exist in pairs and behave like the opposite ends of a horseshoe magnet? ______________________________ 15. Our sun rotates on its axis every _____________ days. 16. The sun’s magnetosphere is stretched out by particles in the solar wind blasting out from where? 17. __________________ are the largest, most violent explosions on the sun’s surface. 18. How long does it take for the sun’s particles to travel in the solar wind to Earth? 19. Earth’s _______________________________ acts like an invisible barrier to solar wind. Part 4 – Crashing Particles 20. The aurora is created when solar particles crash into _______________ particles in Earth’s atmosphere. 21. Earth’s __________________ stops the sun’s particles from reaching the surface of our planet. 22. When the sun’s particles crash into ___________________ and _____________________, particles very high in the atmosphere, they produce a reddish glow. 23. The aurora appears to glow brightest toward its lower edge because that is where particles in Earth’s atmosphere are the most _______________________. 24. The sun’s particles crash into different gases in Earth’s atmosphere to create the aurora about ___________ miles above Earth. Part 5 – Crowns of Light 25. What kind of magnetic field lines loop back to Earth between the poles? 26. Aurora ovals stretch around what kind of magnetic field lines? 27. Aurora ovals form a boundary between the area covered by Earth’s _______magnetic field lines and the area covered by Earth’s ________________magnetic fieldlines. 28. What two things do Alaskans need in order to see the aurora? Part 6 – Glowing Shapes 29. The aurora substorm was discovered by studying films of the aurora made from what type of camera? 30. Rayed bands are vertical bars of light aligned with Earth’s _________________________. 31. Which aurora shape is an optical illusion? 32. List the shapes of aurora displays in the order they occur throughout the night Part 7 – Measuring Aurora 33. Scientists use what two instruments to study the brightness of the aurora? Part 8 – Predicting Aurora 34. What two sources do solar winds come from? ________________ and _______________. 35. _________________________ often are the source of strong solar winds, solar flares, and other large eruptions from the sun’s surface that can be used to predict the aurora. 36. Strong auroral displays can be predicted when the sun’s magnetic field is traveling past Earth in a ______________________ direction. 37. When the thickness or ________________________ of particles in the solar wind increases,the aurora glows bright. 38. Where can aurora forecasts be found on the Internet? Part 9 – Aurora Effects 41. Radio waves bounce off of what layer of Earth’s atmosphere? 42. Large aurora displays can deform the ionosphere, causing radio waves to do what? 43. What does a large aurora create that heats up transformers, causing them to fail? 44. Electric current in the ground, created by the aurora, can cause what destructive process in the trans‐Alaska Pipeline? 45. Electrical energy from the aurora heats up and expands Earth’s atmosphere. This expansion creates a drag on some low‐altitude satellites, causing them to do what?