Reaching for the Stars, Landing in the Aurora
By Lizzy Hahn
Photo By Eric Marshall/UAF Geophysical Institute
The second rocket from the GIRAFF mission launched from the Poker Flat Research Range on February 8, 2025.
Looking up on a clear winter night in Fairbanks, oftentimes, the aurora borealis, also known as Northern Lights, can be seen dancing in the sky. The aurora dancing in the sky above us intrigues many viewers and scientists alike.
Two NASA Goddard research astrophysicists have studied the aurora for around 20 years. On February 1 and February 9, two of the three rockets containing instruments to gather data from within the aurora were successfully launched. Research astrophysics and colleagues at NASA Goddard, Marilia Samara and Robert Michell, launched their rockets to learn more about the three types of aurora. These three types of aurora are black, flickering, and fast pulsating. Black aurora is often identified as the black spots that appear in the aurora. The flickering aurora looks like a candle flame moving through the sky. A fast pulsating aurora is identified as an aurora that turns on and off very fast. Samara’s mission, named BaDASS – short for Black and Diffuse Aurora Science Surveyor, focused on black aurora.
The bigger picture of Samara and Michell’s missions “is that we're constantly affected by the activity on the sun, and both on Earth, but also in space,” Samara said. Both she and Michell study how the aurora can affect the Earth. Samara said that understanding more about the environment between the sun and Earth is vital to getting more people into space.
The aurora borealis is caused by particles that the sun has released, getting caught in the Earth’s magnetic field. Once in the Earth’s magnetic field, these particles move towards the North and South poles. When they collide with nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere, the particles emit light that we can see from the ground and are called aurora.
Photo by Bryan Whitten
NASA Principal Investigators Marilia Samara and Robert Michell led separate aurora missions, with rockets launching from the Poker Flat Research Range. Samara and Michell are pictured looking at the data display at the Poker Flat Science Operations Center on January 17, 2025.
“We have to try and do better at sort of predicting how things that happen on the sun will affect us if we need to get our astronauts into a shielded spot,” Samara said. Shield spots are designated areas on a spaceship where astronauts can find protection from radiation coming from the sun. “Because something more active is happening on the sun that could affect them,” said Samara. Samara referred to the aurora as a visual manifestation of what is happening in space.
Michell’s mission examined the wave-particle interactions within the flickering and fast pulsating auroras. Michell’s mission, GIRAFF – short for Ground Imaging to Rocket investigation of Aurora Fast Features, included two rockets. The first GIRAFF rocket launched on February 1, with the second GIRAFF rocket launching on February 9.
When looking up at the aurora from the ground, one will see it moving in many different motions. Michell describes that sometimes one can see the aurora “turning on and off.” This switch on and off is what GIRAFF is trying to study – the processes that are “causing that on and off of the aurora at really high speeds,” said Michell.
“We think it's electromagnetic waves that are interacting with the electrons as they're heading towards Earth,” said Michell. The main goal of the GIRAFF mission, as Michell described it, is to figure out where these interactions between electrons and electromagnetic waves are happening in the atmosphere.
Samara’s mission has a different goal in mind. Her mission’s goal was to launch into the diffuse aurora. Samara explained that many of our names for the aurora come from our visual observations of it. Diffuse aurora follows this same naming strategy. Samara described diffuse aurora as “an aurora that usually fills up the sky more, but it's less intense in how you see it. It's not the typical bright arcs you see here [Fairbanks].” Samara explained that this type of aurora is not as visible as typical aurora; it tends to show up in darker streaks, which may sometimes be hard to see with the eye, but it is still possible to see.
Photo by Bryan Whitten
Two of the three payloads are pictured being prepared to be launched. These rockets investigated the three types of aurora. They were assembled, and two were launched from the Poker Flat Research Range in early February.
Samara pointed out that the aurora we see on Earth is created by particles from the sun entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Samara brought up the term current closure, which refers to the idea in physics that every physical effect has a physical cause. We know the particles are coming down since that is how we get the aurora on Earth. “You expect there have to be particles going up as well,” said Samara. She’s trying to test that theory.
“If they're going up, the theory is, we expect it to be that it would visually look as if it's dark,” said Samara. While Samara’s rocket could not launch, she hoped to launch the rocket to measure the particles and see if they were going up. By matching the data from the rocket to the visual data of black patches, or black aurora, from the ground cameras at Poker Flat, Samara hoped to connect the black patches in the aurora to the particles going up into the atmosphere.
Ideal conditions for launching these rockets include no wind, no clouds, and a new moon to ensure the night sky is as dark as possible. The launch window for Samara and Michell’s rockets was originally scheduled from January 21 to February 5. However, the launch window was expanded to February 9 due to various factors. Uncommon warm weather caused the wind instruments to freeze. These instruments are vital for launching each rocket.
Photo by Bryan Whitten
The Science Operations Center for the Poker Flat Research Range is found at the top of a hill that overlooks the range.
Both the GIRAFF and BaDASS missions required ground cameras in conjunction with the data they collected from the rocket as it soared through the atmosphere. These ground cameras capture images of the aurora from the ground while the rocket collects data.
Both GIRAFF rockets launched from the Poker Flat Research Range, located approximately 29 miles outside Fairbanks, Alaska. This research range is the only high-latitude rocket range in the United States. Weighing in at 800 pounds with a length of around 40 feet, the GIRAFF rockets marked the start of the Poker Flat launch season. The rockets were built in the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Rockets send data back in real-time as they fly through the air. Samara and Michell’s rockets were designed to be non-recoverable.