Earth’s beautiful, neon-colored aurorae occur when charged particles from the sun (the solar wind) collide with the planet’s outer atmosphere, called the ionosphere. While this bombardment could spell trouble for Earth-dwellers, the Earth’s magnetic field lassos the particles and channels them up above the poles. Brightly luminescent, the aurorae manifest as clouds and ribbons in the sky.
New research released by the Europlanet Society details the cause behind an even stranger aurora, the one that regularly wreathes Mercury with X-rays. This aurora arises from the planet’s surface, not its upper atmosphere, for reasons described in a new paper.
