Post #415

A Black Brant IX sounding rocket is set to launch this week from Alaska carrying the LAMP mission. LAMP, short for "Loss through Auroral Microburst Pulsations, will study an often-overlooked kind of aurora. Auroras come in different shapes and colors, waving their ribbons of vibrant green, red, and purple across the sky. But one variety of aurora displays a peculiar behavior: it pulsates. Like all aurora, pulsating aurora are set alight by electrons (and occasionally protons) from near-Earth space. These electrons plunge into our atmosphere and collide with atoms and molecules, causing them to glow in their distinctive colors – red and green by oxygen, blue by nitrogen – as they release their excess energy.