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NASA Launches Rocket Into Northern Lights
Astronomers recently sent a 46-foot rocket sailing through the shimmering green band of energy known as aurora borealis, or the northern lights. The NASA-funded mission launched on the frigid night of Feb. 18 from the Poker Flat Research Range, 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The rocket, called the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfvén resonator (MICA), arced 200 miles upward and plunged directly into the lights. Auroras occur when charged particles emanating from the sun hit Earth’s upper atmosphere, producing light. Instruments aboard MICA probed the electric and magnetic...
Published By: Wired Science - Tuesday, 21 February
