January 28, 2015: Rockets into the aurora

[Undertoad]

Out on an Alaskan launchpad they fire rockets into the northern lights. The above shot is a composite of all four launches.

The Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment, or M-TeX, and the Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence, or MIST, experiment were successfully conducted the morning of Jan. 26, 2015, from the Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska.

The first M-Tex rocket, a NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket, was launched at 4:13 a.m. EST and was followed one-minute later by the first MIST experiment payload on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion. The second M-TeX payload was launched at 4:46 a.m. EST and also was followed one minute later by the second MIST payload.

Preliminary data show that all four payloads worked as planned and the trimethyl aluminum, or TMA, vapor trails were seen at the various land-based observation sites in Alaska.

So if you had an extra pinch of trimethyl aluminum in your breakfast flakes this morning, blame NASA. I'm not sure what it is, but the gent who videotaped it has a better summary:

On January 26th just after midnight the University of Fairbanks, Alaska launched 4 sounding rockets to study the interaction of solar winds and Earth’s atmosphere. Using different gasses they were able to make a glowing cloud of sorts that would allow them to study this interaction with imagery.

It's a long video... the launch happens about about 1:30 in.