Researchers have long sought to unravel the mysteries of the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights. In 2005, Dartmouth physics professor Kristina Lynch led a team that tried to answer a few of these mysteries with the Cascades-1 rocket, which failed to gather the desired information about the aurora when it was launched in 2005. On March 20, however, with new funding, Lynch and her team successfully collected data after launching the Cascades-2 Sounding Rocket through the aurora.
Lynch presented the initial results of the Cascades-2 rocket mission in a lecture in Wilder Hall last Tuesday.
The aurora borealis is a geophysical phenomenon that usually appears as a display of lights in the night sky in the northern hemisphere.
Researchers launched the rocket from the Poker Flat Research Range, which is operated by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and timed its trajectory to pass through the aurora, Lynch said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Instruments on the rocket measured electrons, ions and electromagnetic fields in the aurora, allowing researchers to study how the northern lights are generated, and specifically, the motions and structure of electron precipitation.
Researchers will not be able draw conclusions from the data for up to two years, Lynch said.
The rocket's payload separated into five pieces during flight, Lynch said, which allowed the researchers to retrieve data from several different points in and around the aurora simultaneously.
Researchers were concerned they would miss the aurora because the rocket needed 10 minutes to reach the correct location, and they could not launch until the northern lights actually appeared, Lynch said.
Despite these concerns, the rocket successfully passed through the lights, reaching its apogee at 11:11:11 GMT, Lynch said.
After passing through the aurora, the rocket landed on an ice sheet in the Arctic Ocean, Lynch said. Because retrieving the debris with trucks or helicopters would have been more damaging for the environment, the team decided to leave the rocket's aluminum shell where it fell, she said.
Several Dartmouth undergraduate and graduate students assisted the research team.
Claire McKenna '10 said she was in charge of assembling the rocket's circuit boards.
"It was really interesting and fun for me to be part of a little internship on campus and have it have real results or effects in the science world," McKenna said.
Umair Siddiqui '10 designed and built foldable arms for the rocket that straightened while the rocket was in the aurora, he said. The arms contained particle detectors that measured electrons and ions.
"Building the arms was really cool," he said. "I was calling up people at NASA and trading designs with them. That was really cool as an undergraduate."
Siddiqui said he was excited that it was such a successful mission.
"When [Cascades-2] was launched, all of the data came in perfectly, which means that the arms I built worked perfectly," Siddiqui said. "I was really satisfied when [the results] came out."
Dartmouth researchers collaborated with scientists from Cornell University, the University of New Hampshire and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks on the Cascades-2.
