History
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Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn. Boreal is a Latin word, meaning "north." Thus, the northern lights. In the Antarctic, the lights are called the aurora australialis, or southern lights.
- The aurora borealis has fascinated, and often terrified, humans for thousands of years. The people of the north who saw the aurora frequently developed many legends and stories about it, while those who lived further south and rarely saw the aurora thought it was a supernatural omen of war or destruction.
- As people began to seek more natural explanations for the aurora, they came up with many theories; such as reflected firelight from the edge of the world, sunlight reflected from the arctic ice, or maybe reflected by ice crystals high in the sky. It wasn't until the 20th century that people finally began to make headway in the study of the aurora, and there are still many unanswered questions about it.