This article will show you how to make the Northern Lights. do it yourself. This manual is taken from the YouTube channel "Fiery TV".
Aurora borealis is a natural phenomenon that occurs under the influence of charged particles of the solar wind. The basis of the solar wind is composed of electrons, as well as protons and helium nuclei, which every second and in a colossal volume are thrown out by our star - the Sun.
The magnetic field of the earth is designed to protect our planet from such a bombardment by charged particles. It is thanks to the Earth’s magnetic field that most of the charged particles flying with great speed are reflected and envelope our planet.
But some particles still manage to penetrate the Earth’s magnetic field and enter our atmosphere. This happens in the areas of the north and south poles.
Ionized gases begin to conduct electric current and a glow discharge occurs, which is called the northern lights or auroras.
In fact, this is practically the same as lightning, but only in the higher layers of the atmosphere, where the gas is sufficiently discharged, which does not allow the smoldering charge to go into an arc discharge.
As you know, at the north and south poles it is almost impossible to see lightning, but then you can observe the aurora boggling with its beauty - huge clouds of gas in a state of plasma.
The electric field also has the ability to ionize the gas. Take, for example, this high voltage generator:
Here you can observe that an electric current literally passes through the air, forming at the same time small electrical discharges - lightning. With the help of this high-voltage generator, we will now create the real northern lights, but only in miniature. We will try to make the most ordinary air surrounding us glow. In the author’s hands is an ordinary test tube, inside it is ordinary air.
Now let's see what happens to the air inside the tube if you bring the vessel to the high-voltage generator.
As you can see, nothing happens. But what happens if we start pumping air out of this test tube, thereby creating low pressure inside? In order to pump out air from the test tube, we will use a vacuum pump.
By the way, the author made this vacuum pump independently from the compressor from the refrigerator.
Further to the pump it is necessary to somehow connect our test tube, filled, I repeat, with the most ordinary air, the very one that we breathe. The author decided to do this with the help of ordinary blue electrical tape.
Now turn on the vacuum pump and gradually begin to pump out air from the test tube. Let's see how the nature of the lightning inside this tube will change.
As you can see, as the air is evacuated from the tube, the resistance inside apparently begins to decrease. Inside, we can observe a discharge, but this is far from a glowing discharge, but no longer an arc one, you see, it no longer looks like an ordinary lightning.
A glow inside the tube only occurs if the rarefied tube is brought close enough to the high voltage source. But when removing the test tube from the high-voltage generator, the air inside it does not want to glow.
In order to still make it emit light, it is necessary to lower the pressure inside the tube even more. But the capacity of this compressor is apparently not enough and we need for this purpose something more powerful than this compressor. The author decided to make 2 ampoules. In the first ampoule there will be ordinary air with normal atmospheric pressure, and in the second ampoule we will create reduced pressure using a vacuum pump and seal them.
Here is what happened in the end.
In such a non-cunning way, we were able to solder 2 such ampoules, in one of them ordinary air, and in the other air under low pressure. Now let's compare how the nature of the arc will differ in different conditions.
It becomes obvious that at low pressure the air conductivity increases. Quite long discharges slip inside the ampoule with low pressure, and we do not observe any discharges inside the ampoule with normal atmospheric pressure. The difference is simply obvious!
But still, it still does not look like the northern lights. Meet, this is a two-stage vacuum pump, not too productive, but with it we can create a very deep vacuum, an extremely deep vacuum ...
Using this vacuum pump, we will try to pump out air from this long glass tube and see if the difference is noticeable.
The difference can be noticed literally right away. As you can see, the tube began to glow along its entire length. Now now it is more like a glow discharge that flows in the upper atmosphere of our planet. Moreover, the more air is pumped out of the tube, the more even the glow in the end we observe. Now all the air in the tube glows.
Just think, the most ordinary air is capable of such, it’s some kind of magic! At different heights, the composition of the air is very different, so the northern lights are often colorful. But at sea level, the color of the glow of air is just like that.
The author stores lightning in this ampoule:
But in this ampoule is the northern lights:
Please note that when the ampoule with the northern lights is closer to the source of the electric field, the lightning in the corresponding ampoule immediately ceases.
This clearly demonstrates that in regions where you can observe the northern lights, lightning is quite rare.
In order not to touch the ampoule with his hands, the author made such a holder from wood:
The tree conducts current, but sooo weakly. This will be enough to start the glow. When approaching the ampoule close enough to the source of high voltage, the air inside it begins to glow very evenly.
But as soon as we increase this distance, then the gas immediately begins to draw lines going to the sides of the coil.
If you look at the ampoule on the other hand, we will see that the glow inside is actually flat and this plane passes through the axis of the coil.
If you carefully look at the real northern lights, you can see that it also consists of many parallel lines that repeat the lines of the magnetic field of our planet.
Here is such an experiment. As a result, the author of the YouTube channel “Fiery TV” managed to get in miniature something similar to the real northern lights. That's all. Thank you for attention. See you soon!
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