Re: How did the Aurora Borealis get it's name?

It comes from some Latin words. Aurora is the name of the Roman godess of dawn -- 
later it became a word for the dawn itself. Borealis is a Latin word for the 
North. So when you see the streamers of the Northern lights, it is as if you were 
seeing the dawn in the North starting in the night sky!

Here in my country there is no aurora borealis, but about once every ten years 
the Southern lights are visible from Melbourne. We are too far away from the 
polar regions to see them more often. We call them "aurora australis", the dawn 
in the South!