Well...The French astronomer Pierre Gassendi ( 1592 - 1655) is often credited with being the first to NAME them the aurora borealis or Northern Lights, but we know that these have been observed by ancient Chinese and ancient Greek peoples. Eskimo and Scandanavian peoples have a long oral tradition of referring to the northern lights that goes back at least as far as 700 A.D.
All answers are provided by Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX)
for the
NASA IMAGE/POETRY
Education and Public Outreach program.