Yes, there are southern lights. LIke the northern lights, tney sometimes look like searchlight beams, or a colored flame, or curtains waving in the night sky. This phenomenon – the aurora – is most often visible from the high latitudes, especially polar latitudes, of both hemispheres.

Auroras in the northern hemisphere are called the aurora borealis. In the southern hemisphere, they’re called the aurora australis.

Auroras appear when charged particles – streaming from the sun – get trapped by Earth’s magnetic field and flow toward our planet’s two geomagnetic poles. The particles collide with gases in the upper atmosphere, causing these gases to glow. In the same way electrons passing through the gases in a neon tube make a neon sign light up. The colors of the aurora are caused by different gases. Oxygen atoms emit red and green light. Nitrogen molecules give off blue and violet light.

Not nearly as many people see the aurora australis, or southern lights, as do its northern counterpart. The most vivid and frequent displays of southern lights are seen over the wilderness of Antarctica – where scientists go to study them.