Clemson professor at work under the northern light sky

Stephen Kaeppler, an assistant professor of physics at Clemson University, and other scientists launched sounding rockets into the colorful aerial display of the northern lights over Fairbanks, Alaska.  They were studying how energy behaves during an active aurora in a NASA-funded project.  Their launch spot was the Poker Flat Research Range–the largest university-owned, land-based rocket research range in the world.  Kaeppler and colleagues from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, University of California-Berkeley and University of Calgary are studying how and at what altitude energy from the magnetosphere is transferred to the ionosphere and thermosphere.