Charlotte is the assistant technology editor at Popular Science. She’s interested in understanding how our relationship with technology is changing, and how we live online.
If you live in and around Gulkana, Alaska and recently saw some eerie lights in the sky—don’t worry; they were all part of a science experiment. Earlier this week, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and several other US institutions created artificial auroras by sending radio pulses into the Earth’s ionosphere using
team. This is similar to how charged particles from the sun interact with gasses in the upper atmosphere to create natural auroras; the charged particles are steered by the Earth’s magnetic field to the north and south poles to form aurora borealis and aurora australis. Compared to those light displays, the artificial auroras are much weaker. So why did the researchers do all this? Studying this artificial airglow may provide insights on what happens when real aurora lights appear.
is to research the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere as it pertains to surveillance, military and civilian communications, as well as radar and navigation systems. Outside of studying auroras,
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