Dear Sebastian,

For many people, seeing the northern lights is the ultimate bucket list item. Lately, experiencing them has gotten a whole lot easier.

I asked my friend Michael Allen about those dancing green and pink lights. He’s an astronomer at Washington State University.

He told me that, along with its light, the sun emits charged particles—mostly protons and electrons. Those particles freely stream into space. Then, some of them bump into Earth’s magnetic field.

Earth has a magnetic field because there’s molten iron in its core. As the liquid metal moves and flows, it makes a giant magnet. The magnet is strongest near Earth’s poles. It makes loops of magnetic energy around the planet that reach out into space.

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