A NASA-funded team launched a rocket straight into an Alaskan aurora on March 3, for science.
The mission, known as the Ground-to-Rocket Electrodynamics-Electrons Correlative Experiment, was designed to study how auroras form. The team camped out at Poker Flat Research Range in Poker Flat, Alaska, until aurora conditions were right for take-off.
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This particular rocket is called a sound rocket, and it stayed airborne for about 10 minutes while instruments attached to its body sampled plasma from the aurora. Once the rocket's engine flamed out, its body parachuted back to Earth with the samples in tow.
These samples will hopefully give scientists some more information on plasma particles and electric fields within the aurora. Depending on what those particles reveal, scientists could have a better understanding of how plasma moves and what electromagnetic waves cause auroras to curl and sway like ribbons in a breeze.
Below, we've collected some images from the mission.
A NASA-funded rocket launched into an early-morning Alaskan aurora on March 3.
The rocket spent around 600 seconds in the air and crested over Venetie, Alaska.
The mission's goal is to study how certain swirls and curls form in auroras.
Some of the team's equipment sits outside a log cabin.
These instruments helped analyze plasma particles in the aurora.
Members of the NASA-funded team pose with their baby.
The mission missed its original launch window from Jan. 24-Feb. 6, but found the right conditions less than a month later.
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