The Pic of the Day: NASA rocket creates artificial auroras

Per NASA’s press release:

The Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment or AZURE mission was successfully conducted on April 5, 2019 from the Andøya Space Center in Norway. The first Black Brant XI sounding rocket was launched at 6:14 p.m. EDT and flew to an altitude of 200 miles, followed by the launch of the second Black Brant XI at 6:16 p.m. EDT flying to an altitude of 202 miles. The initial assessment from the field showed that the rockets were launched into a good science event and ground-based photos/data of the vapor releases were obtained from at least two locations.  Preliminary reports state that the scientists for the mission were very pleased with the results.

 

Watch a time-lapse of the auroras below: