Rockets to Uncover Electric Circuit That Powers the Northern Lights - Space Ref

from Andøya Space in Norway.

For its second trip to space, the Aurora Current and Electrodynamics Structures II, or ACES II, instrument will launch from Andøya Space in Andenes, Norway.

Just as charged particles flow in, a stream of charged particles flows from our atmosphere back out to space.

This turnaround is in the ionosphere, a layer of our atmosphere that begins some 40 miles overhead and extends into space, where charged particles and neutral gases coexist and interact.

Those arriving from above are electrically charged particles from space.

Their electric charge keeps them tethered to Earth’s magnetic field lines, which they twirl around as they nosedive into our atmosphere or outwards into space.

And yet, this turbulent mixing in the ionosphere is what keeps the auroral current churning.

The strategy is to fly two rockets: a “high-flyer” that will measure particles flowing in and out of our atmosphere, and a “low-flyer” that, at the same time, will see the dynamic exchange in the ionosphere that keeps it all flowing.

At the Andøya Space Center in Andenes, Norway, the auroral oval – the magnetic “ring” encircling Earth’s northern magnetic pole within which auroras form – passes overhead each night.

Bounds and his team will wait until the auroral oval is overhead – their clue that the auroral current is flowing above them.

Its goal is to see the streams of particles flowing into and out of our atmosphere.