Holly Stone, age 11, of Anchorage, Kentucky, for her question:

Can aurora borealis happen at the South Pole?

Gorgeous auroras often fan out from above the South Pole, but this display is not called the aurora borealis. The word borealis is coined from the olden name for the north wind. Obviously we replace it with a word related to the southern part of the globe. Aurora borealis belongs to the Arctic. Aurora australis belongs to the Antarctic. Sometimes it's simpler to refer to them as the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights.

Sunspots are thought to be monstrous magnetic storms that shoot streams of peppy solar particles out into space. Soon after one of these eruptions, colorful auroras may appear high above the Arctic and the Antarctic. Scientists suspect they are caused by mini¬ collisions high in the atmosphere. The earth's two magnetic poles tend to attract solar particles and these poles are quite close to the ordinary North Pole and South Pole. So when auroras appear, both polar regions tend to get a share of the show