Best of the Archives: Auroral Rocket in Norway

From NASA's Earth Observatory:

The aurora borealis and aurora australis—the northern and southern lights—are visible manifestations of a connection between the Sun and Earth. Blasts of energy and magnetically charged particles from the Sun are constantly flowing out into space and crashing into the magnetic fields of Earth and other planets. That energy stirs up the particles and energy trapped in Earth’s space, or magnetosphere, creating the auroras and disturbing the upper reaches of our atmosphere. Photographers captured this spectacular photograph of a four-stage Black Brant XII sounding rocket and the aurora borealis (inset) four years ago on December 12, 2010, during the NASA-funded Rocket Experiment for Neutral Upwelling (RENU). The rocket was launched from Andøya Rocket Range near Andenes, Norway, and carried instruments about 200 miles (320 kilometers) into the atmosphere to observe the aurora and the associated flow of heat, particles, and electromagnetic energy. The photograph of the aurora was taken from the Kjell Henrickson Observatory in Svalbard, which was under the apogee, or peak, of the rocket’s arc through the sky. The rocket landed in the ocean about 900 miles (1450 km) from the launch site.