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Why Launch a Rocket Deep Into an Aurora?

On Feb. 18, a NASA-funded collaboration launched a sounding rocket directly into a shimmering green aurora, from the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska.

It’s called the Magneto-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfven Resonator mission, with the aim of studying so-called “space weather” — arising from the stream of charged particles from the sun that mess with the magnetosphere, sometimes interfering with our electronic systems — like the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. We would like our GPS to keep on working, and not be knocked out by a solar storm.

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