NASA launches twin rocket missions from Alaska to study mysterious black auroras

streaks of bright light reach from the ground to the sky above a snowy landscape dotted with evergreen trees — A long exposure shot of two sounding rockets launching from the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska on Feb. 10. (Image credit: NASA/Teik Araya)

NASA launched two rockets from Alaska this week to learn more about the electrical "circuitry" within auroras, the colorful light shows that occur when solar wind collides with Earth's atmosphere.

The missions saw two suborbital sounding rockets launch from the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska loaded with scientific equipment that will fly into the atmosphere for a short period of time to gather data.

The Black and Diffuse Auroral Science Surveyor (BADASS) mission launched in the early morning of Feb. 9 to study black auroras, an event that occurs when electrons shoot up into space, instead of flowing toward Earth, which is what happens with other auroras.

The rocket reached an altitude of 224 miles (360 km) before falling back to Earth. The BADASS mission's principal investigator Marilia Samara said everything went according to plan and that the scientific instruments on the rocket performed as expected, returning high-quality data that NASA can use to study black auroras and what causes the electron stream reversal to happen.

green wisps of light in the sky — Black aurora seen on a Hurtigruten cruise voyage in Norway. (Image credit: Future/Daisy Dobrijevic)

The Geophysical Non-Equilibrium Ionospheric System Science (GNEISS) mission, pronounced "nice", used a pair of sounding rockets on a wider mission of creating a 'CT scan' of the electric currents flowing in the northern lights.

The GNEISS rockets launched back-to-back on Feb. 10 and reached peak altitudes of 198 miles (319 km) and 198 miles (319 km). The launches for the GNEISS mission went according to plan, gathering data that NASA will use to look into auroras' inner workings.

"We want to know how the current spreads downward through the atmosphere," Kristina Lynch, GNEISS principal investigator and Dartmouth College professor said in a NASA statement.

Using the two rockets with a network of ground receivers, the data gathered during the flight will allow researchers to create a three-dimensional view of an aurora's electoral environment.

"It's essentially like doing a CT scan of the plasma beneath the aurora," Lynch said.

Studying auroras is important, because they are associated with geomagnetic storms, which can cause all kinds of technical issues for satellites in space, as well as endanger astronauts. On Earth, the storms can lead to power blackouts, cause air travel diversions, and interfere with radio transmissions.

Julian Dossett is a freelance writer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He primarily covers the rocket industry and space exploration and, in addition to science writing, contributes travel stories to New Mexico Magazine. In 2022 and 2024, his travel writing earned IRMA Awards. Previously, he worked as a staff writer at CNET. He graduated from Texas State University in San Marcos in 2011 with a B.A. in philosophy. He owns a large collection of sci-fi pulp magazines from the 1960s.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.