Imagine, you're a girl living in the late 1950's. It's a very special occasion and you are being allowed to wear some of your mothers jewellery. It's a great honour and she has lots of lovely jewellery to choose from. Now, she does have some real gemstones, but you prefer her crystal aurora borealis necklace. It is still very valuable, but you like it because it looks like the lights you hear appear in the night-time sky which you can see from countries near the North Pole. You haven't seen them personally, but you've seen pictures!
When I took this aurora borealis necklace to school the children, especially the girls, thought it was beautiful. So shiny and with so many colours flashing through it when it was held in the light! Many of them thought it was some kind of diamond, but it is actually simple crystal, or even glass. It has simply had a special coating put on the outside of the 'stones' to make them extra colourful and shiny. The children were also particularly impressed by the idea that the type of 'stone' is called aurora borealis after the northern lights. Some of them had studied these in class last year, or were likely to do it this year, and they commented that the necklace made them feel like they were holding a piece of the night sky in their hands.
Aurora Borealis are created by adding a thin layer of metal to cut rock crystal or glass. It is often applied to clear glass or crystal, but it can also be added to already coloured pieces, like the one I showed the children. Aurora Borealis crystals were first created by Sworovski Crystals in the 1950's and they were made for the famous designer Christian Dior. In 1947, Dior had launched what was called the 'New Look'. During the Second World War material had been rationed and so clothing was very simple. After the war Dior began to use more and more material in his creations, creating ultra feminine full skirts which sometimes used up to 80 yards (a yard is almost a metre) of fabric! He wanted a new style of jewellery to go with his fashions and asked Sworovski to create them - aurora borealis were the result. If you would like to learn more about the new fashion of Dior click here, and if you would like to learn more about the history of aurora borealis click here.
The name Aurora Borealis is taken from a natural phenomenon which shares the same name but is also known as the Northern Lights.The Aurora Borealis are the lights which light up the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. The word Aurora is taken from the name of the Roman Goddess of the dawn and Borealis is the Greek name for the North Wind. The lights are easiest to see close to the North Pole, and the South Pole has its own version of the lights called the Aurora Australis. The Auroras happen because tiny electrically charged particles (mostly electrons) speed along magnetic fields in the atmosphere and run into gas in the upper atmosphere. When they hit the gas the gas gives off light of different colours depending on what sort of gas it is. They are easiest to see near the North and South Poles because these areas, the Earths magnetic poles, are where the magnetic fields are strongest. If you would like to learn more about Auroras, visit the Exploratorium Museum's website by clicking here.