The VISIONS sounding rocket mission team, assembled on the night of Feb. 6, 2013 at Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. Credi
The VISIONS sounding rocket mission team, assembled on the night of Feb. 6, 2013 at Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. VISIONS: Seeing the Aurora in a New Light A team of NASA scientists arrived in Poker Flats, Alaska at the end of January, 2013. The team is patiently waiting for the exotic red and green glow of an aurora to illuminate the sky. Instead of simply admiring the view, this group from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center of Greenbelt, Md., and The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif. will launch a sounding rocket up through the Northern Lights. The rocket could launch as early as the night of Feb. 2, 2013, but the team has a two-week window in order to find the perfect launch conditions. Armed with a series of instruments developed specifically for this mission, the VISIONS (VISualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral atom imaging during a Substorm) rocket will soar high through the arctic sky to study the auroral wind, which is a strong but intermittent stream of oxygen atoms from Earth’s atmosphere into outer space. The rocket will survive only fifteen minutes before splashing down in the Arctic Ocean, but the information it obtains will provide answers to some long-standing questions. VISIONS is studying how oxygen atoms leave Earth’s atmosphere under the influence of the aurora. Most of the atmosphere is bound by Earth’s gravity, but a small portion of it gets heated enough by the aurora that it can break free, flowing outwards until it reaches near-Earth space. The atoms that form this wind initially travel at about 300 miles per hour -- only one percent of the speed needed to overcome gravity and leave Earth's atmosphere. The principal investigator for VISIONS, Goddard's Doug Rowland is providin
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Keywords: aurora, flat, goddard, nasa, poker, rocket, space
