What explanation did Edmund Halley of comet fame give for the Northern Lights?

peasypod

Halley explained the aurora thus: "Auroral rays are due to the particles, which are affected by the magnetic field; the rays are parallel to Earth's magnetic field, and the vault like shape is due to perspective phenomena." This is the first scientific finding which was accepted at that time and still holds true. Oct 19 04, 1:16 AM

gmackematix

The interesting bit is what he thought the particles themselves were. [Oct 19 04 8:01 PM] gmackematix writes: It would seem that depite his advances in actuarial science, meteorology, magnetism, astronomy and so on, not everything Halley believed was quite so prescient: http://www.unmuseum.org/hollow.htm Oct 19 04, 4:49 PM