ABSTRACT
The aurora makes an ideal starting point for our explorations. Acceleration is particularly well marked and well documented here and, occurring relatively nearby on just the threshold of outer space, there is a great wealth of information about the phenomenon from many sources. The issues and processes we shall discuss have a relevance to most of the other acceleration sites on our itinerary, so the discussion here will serve as a central reference for these, too. What makes auroral electron acceleration particularly intriguing is that it constitutes one of the major puzzles confronting space plasma physics today.
