Embry-Riddle Researchers Collaborate on NASA’s Northern Lights Rocket Launch

A NASA dual-rocket launch scheduled this month will explore the northern lights, whose sky-spanning colors have recently made a stunningly extensive appearance. Researchers from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and eight other institutions are collaborating on the mission, which aims to advance the understanding of what occurs in Earth’s upper atmosphere during the aurora borealis.

The two rockets are scheduled to launch sometime between February 7 and 25 from Poker Flat, Alaska, on the night of an auroral display.

Acquiring a detailed 3D picture of what’s happening in the upper atmosphere during an auroral display is important to the understanding of space weather, which can affect communications, energy and navigation systems on Earth. The colorful displays involve energy transfers between Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field protecting the Earth, and the ionosphere, a layer of the Earth’s upper atmosphere that contains a high concentration of charged particles.

"Aurora research helps us predict and protect against space weather impacts on our critical infrastructure, such as satellites, power grids and communication systems,” said Dr. Robert Clayton, a research scientist in Embry-Riddle’s Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab (SAIL) and the Center for Space and Atmospheric Research (CSAR).

The GNEISS (Geophysical Non-Equilibrium Ionospheric System Science) mission consists of two rockets that will launch 30 seconds apart. The rockets will carry four ejectable instruments. These instruments were designed, built and calibrated by Clayton, Dr. Aroh Barjatya — professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, SAIL director and interim executive director of CSAR — and student researchers. Ph.D. student Nathan Graves worked on the initial design of the instruments for previous missions and helped to calibrate them for GNEISS. 

Similar instruments developed by SAIL have been used to study plasma dynamics in multiple locations of the ionosphere on past NASA sounding rocket missions, including the Sporadic-E Electro Dynamics Demonstration Mission (SpEED Demon), Sporadic-e Electro Dynamics (SEED) and Atmospheric Perturbations Around the Eclipse Path (APEP).

Dr. Matthew Zettergren, professor in Embry-Riddle’s Physical Sciences Department, will lead an effort to model the ionospheric dynamics of the auroral display using GEMINI, which is a computer model of the upper atmosphere. Zettergren will combine measurements from the space instruments, as well as from camera-equipped ground stations throughout Alaska, to reconstruct what Earth’s atmosphere looks like during the displays.

“The modeling plays an important role in helping to provide context and understanding of the physical processes behind the many data we collect,” Zettergren said. “We can construct elaborate 3D representations of the aurora state during the rocket launch using data-driven modeling, which helps us trace energy exchange mechanisms and various unobservable aspects of the dynamics.”

Recently, appearances of the northern lights — which, like the southern lights, generally appear near the Earth’s poles — have been visible as far south as Florida and New Mexico.

The unusual displays were attributed to a particularly severe geomagnetic storm. Such storms occur with ejections of charged particles from the sun. The particles interact with gases in the ionosphere and glow. Oxygen produces green or red light, while nitrogen creates shades of blue and purple, creating streaks of color in the sky.  

“These recent geomagnetic storms offer a window into understanding the forces connecting our planet to the sun, which we will study with this campaign,” Clayton said.

Dartmouth College is leading the GNEISS mission. Other collaborating institutions include the University of California, Berkeley; the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory; the University of Alaska Fairbanks; SRI International; the University of New Hampshire; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; and NASA Goddard Flight Center.