Hi Kathy, That's a great question, and one that puzzled scientists for many years. The aurora borealis and aurora australis actually do not occur right over the north and south geomagnetic poles. The auroral zones are actually ring-shaped regions that surround the north and south geomagnetic poles. The reason for this is the structure of the Earth's magnetic field and the sources of energetic charged particles inside the Earth's magnetosphere. The Earth's magnetic field is a little bit like the dipolar magnetic field of a bar magnet. However, the Earth's magnetic field is deformed by the solar wind flow. The solar wind squishes the Earth's magnetic field on the day side and stretches the Earth's magnetic field out into a long tail (the magnetotail) on the night side of the Earth. The magnetic field lines from the night side auroral zones can be traced to a region in the magnetotail called the plasma sheet. As its name suggests, the plasma sheet is a source of charged particles. Scientists aren't exactly sure how the plasma sheet and auroral displays are connected. However, we think this is related to processes in the plasma sheet that can accelerate particles, produce plasma waves, and result in the generation of electrical currents that flow into the ionosphere to create the aurora. Kris