版权所有/图片由Björn Myreze提供.
最近的一个晚上，在挪威的北极圈上空, two rockets carrying equipment designed and built by UNH students and researchers streaked across the sky, cutting through the vivid green aurora — more commonly known as the Northern Lights. These skyward sensations are created when charged particles, 比如电子, 与地球磁场中的其他粒子相互作用. 但并非所有的极光都是一样的:有些是暗淡的, 其他人则在颤抖, 其余的都很高, 在夜空中翩翩起舞.
这个NASA的任务, called Aurora Current and Electrodynamics Structure II (ACES II), 专注于最后一种类型, 称为弧, 哪些又窄又高, 延伸到几百公里外的大气层. Electrons in those arcs move in a continuous loop upward and downward in the ionosphere, 地球大气层较低的部分, 创造这些奇妙的鸟瞰图, but scientists don’t fully understand exactly how the electron currents close that loop; the electrons that move downward are easy to measure, 但那些回来的不是, and the ionosphere itself may play a role in connecting them.
两个UNH的本科生, two graduate students and a few other scientific staff worked closely with Marc Lessard, 联合国大学物理学教授 空间科学中心 and the 工程与物理科学学院, to design and build four instruments — two for each rocket — that would measure the temperature of the electrons in the aurora and also measure the currents directly. The data gleaned from the two 10-minute rocket flights will reveal the role that the ionosphere plays in the dancing aurora arcs.
ACES II任务由爱荷华大学领导, 与加州大学的其他合作者合作, 加州大学伯克利分校, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the University of Calgary.
