Observing the Aurora: a window into the near-geospace environment

The Northern Lights, also known the Aurora Borealis, are an ionospheric phenomena which has fascinated mankind for centuries. A beautiful display of light, the Aurora also provides a window into the workings of the near-space environment – most of which would otherwise remain invisible.  The aurora yields important clues about plasma and large-scale dynamic processes in the solar-terrestrial environment. Due to the immense size of the near-earth environment, understanding how the Sun-Earth relationship evolves is a challenge. Fortunately, many of the same energetic processes that drive dynamics in near-Earth space are also projected on the upper atmosphere as optical emissions in the form of aurora and airglow. This talk will provide a broad overview of the aurora, its location and appearance, and how it can be used to gain insight into the manifestation of geospace processes powered by the solar wind-magnetospheric interaction.  Additionally, a brief description on how the emergence of Citizen Science is prompting new advances in auroral research will be presented.