Photo: Northern Lights Controlled by Magnetic "Ropes"

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An artist's conception of an aurora (red and green stripes) appears over a series of NASA ground stations (blue circles) used to monitor a series of orbiting satellites dubbed THEMIS.

New findings from the THEMIS probes suggests that the northern lights, or aurora borealis, are fueled by magnetic "ropes" linking the sun and Earth.

Image courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

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