On This Day Cook Expedition Records Radiance Of Southern Lights

Perth Mint - On 16th September 1770, Captain Cook's expedition to Australia witnessed the Aurora Australis, becoming the first Europeans to note the astonishing light show.
Aboard HMS Endeavour, botanists Joseph Banks wrote in his journal:

"About 10 O'Clock a Phenomenon appeared in the heavens in many things resembling the Aurora Borealis but differing materially in others: it consisted of a dull reddish light reaching in height about 20 degrees above the Horizon: its extent was very different at different times but never less than 8 or 10 points of the compass. Through and out of this pass rays of a brighter colored light tending directly upwards."
Unknown to Cook and his fellow explorers, the lights are created when energetic particles, principally electrons, strike the upper atmosphere and travel along Earth's magnetic field lines. (The same principle operates in a fluorescent tube or neon light.)


The reverse of this 2013 silver coin from the popular Australian Antarctic Territory Series features a representation of this natural wonder also known as the Southern Lights. Coloured with glow-in-the-dark ink, the portrayal of Aurora Australis glows in the dark!