Galileo Galilei named the Northern Lights "Aurora Borealis" but misunderstood their origin.

In 1619, Galileo Galilei and his colleague Guiducci published 'Discourse on the Comets,' where they first introduced the term 'Aurora Borealis.' Galileo derived the name from Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, and Boreas, the Greek personification of the north wind. At the time, Galileo hypothesized that the lights were an optical illusion caused by sunlight reflecting off vapors rising from the Earth's surface.This atmospheric reflection theory was consistent with the limited scientific tools of the 17th century but was fundamentally incorrect. It was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the true mechanism was identified. Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, often called the father of modern aurora science, proposed in 1896 that electrons from sunspots triggered the lights by interacting with the Earth's magnetic field.Modern physics confirms that the aurora is a plasma phenomenon. It occurs when charged particles from the solar wind collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the Earth's thermosphere, roughly 60 to 200 miles above the ground. These collisions excite the atoms, which then release energy in the form of colorful light. While Galileo's physical explanation failed, his poetic nomenclature has survived for over 400 years as the primary designation for this celestial event.