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Posted by Andrew Yee on February 19, 2007, 11:27 am
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Canadian Space Agency
February 18, 2007
Demystifying the Northern Lights
Longueuil, Quebec -- A key phase in a project to better understand the
northern lights got off the ground last night. Five NASA satellites,
launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral, will soon align to form a
constellation over northern Canada every four days to gather scientific data
about the aurora borealis. A network of 20 observatories will record the
same phenomenon from the ground. The Canadian Space Agency is supporting
THEMIS ground operations in Canada. THEMIS is a NASA-funded mission led by
researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and involves
scientists from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The mission will investigate
what causes auroras in the Earth's atmosphere to dramatically change from
slowly shimmering waves of light to wildly shifting streaks of colour.
Although we know that the aurora are caused by particles emitted by the sun
that have been released into the Earth's magnetosphere, scientists want to
know more about how and why northern lights occur. They will be analyzing
the spacecraft measurements in combination with data from ground stations
located throughout the tundra, from Alaska to Labrador.
"With 16 ground stations spread across its territory, Canada plays an
integral part in the THEMIS mission," said Dr. William Liu, senior scientist
in Solar-Terrestrial Sciences at the Canadian Space Agency. "Scientists from
five Canadian universities have teamed up to operate the observatories,
gather data, and analyze it. Combining THEMIS satellite and ground data will
improve our understanding of how energy from the sun produces the northern
lights and other space weather effects," added Dr. Liu.
The Canadian science team is led by Dr. Eric Donovan of the University of
Calgary, and includes scientists from the Universities of Alberta, New
Brunswick, and Saskatchewan, Athabasca University, and Natural Resources
Canada's Geomagnetic Laboratory. The Canadian Space Agency has allocated
over $1.4 million to fund current Canadian THEMIS research activities.
Dr. Donovan's team has set up instruments in Fort Simpson, Fort Smith,
Rankin Inlet, Inuvik, and Whitehorse, among other locations. Each station
houses an automated all-sky camera that will take pictures every three
seconds each night, over at least a two-year observation period, collecting
more than 200 million images.
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For more information:
Julie Simard
Canadian Space Agency
Media Relations
Telephone: (450) 926-4370
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