Welcome to History

The sun was strangely quiet for a century after the dawn of science.
The lack of auroral activity at lower altitudes
must have lowered interest in the subject.
The return of solar activity in the 1700s was marked
 by a great, low-altitude aurora in 1716.
It was observed by the astronomer Edmund Halley.


http://www.rugusavay.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Edmond-Halley-Quotes-5.jpg


Until the Early 1900's people thought the aurora was caused
 by sunlight reflecting off ice crystals in the sky.
Norwegian physicist Anders Jonas Angstrom (picture below) was the first to use
 a prism to study the aurora. He found that the auroral spectrum was entirely
different from the solar spectrum because it didn't make a rainbow.



http://www.nndb.com/people/929/000100629/angstrom-1.jpg


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