AURORA

[noun]

1. Roman mythology: the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Like Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas (and possibly Germanic Ostara), Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos.

2. Fairytale: one of the most commonly used names for the princess in the fairytale, Sleeping Beauty. Other names include but are not limited to, Talia, Briar Rose and Rosebud.

3. Astronomy/Meteorology: (plural: aurorae or auroras)  a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere. In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. Its southern counterpart is the aurora australis (or the southern lights).

[Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10]

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