|
Credit & Copyright: Yang Sutie
Explanation:
What's happening in the sky?
The atmosphere over northern
Norway
appeared quite strange for about 30 minutes last Friday
when colorful clouds, dots, and plumes suddenly appeared.
The colors were actually created by the NASA-funded
Auroral
Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment
(AZURE) which dispersed gas tracers to probe winds in Earth's
upper
atmosphere.
AZURE's tracers originated from two short-lived
sounding rockets
launched from the
AndÜya Space
Center in Norway.
The harmless gases,
trimethylaluminum
and a
barium/strontium mixture,
were released into the
ionosphere
at altitudes of 115 and 250 km.
The vapor
trails were observed
dispersing
from several ground stations.
Mapping how
AZURE's
vapors
dispersed should increase humanity's understanding of how the
solar wind
transfers energy to the Earth and powers
aurora.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: atmosphere
Publications with words: atmosphere
See also: