Return to Boston

We’ve survived the cold and made it back to Boston with all of our equipment (still contained in the boxes this time!). Now starts the time when we’ll get to really dig in to the data analysis and start to see whether we captured any of the geophysical phenomena that we were hoping for. Across the two weeks in Alaska, we collected camera, magnetometer, radio, electron density, spectrometry, and muon detector data on some clear nights and some cloudy.

Encouragingly, preliminary looks at the data show clear correlations over the entire grid where we deployed cameras and magnetometers. We’ll be digging in to see how the magnetometry data is changing as the shape of the aurora develops above and what other information we might be able to pull out assuming simple models of the aurora’s structure.

Radio data will be analyzed to see if we can discern some of the classic signatures of auroral and ionospheric emission. The data were taken in several different locations generally with an allsky nearby, offering the possibility again that we might be able to look at correlation in the two signals.

The spectrometry tells us about the species of plasma present at different points in the aurora and the ionization states of the constituent ions. Spectra can provide a wealth of overlapping signals. The challenge will be disentangling and deciding which signals correspond to which species.

Electron density information was acquired using a GPS unit. The change in travel time of different frequency signals is affected by the index of refraction of the atmosphere between the GPS unit and the satellite it communicates with. That index of refraction is in turn determined by the electron density of the atmosphere. These measurements then provide a way of measuring electron content along lines of sight to the satellites.

Finally, the muon data has been shown in other works to be correlated to auroral activity. We’re hoping we can recreate some of those results and see whether the rate varies with imagery of auroral activity on the nights that we observed.

The team had an excellent trip but there is much work left to be done!

Thank you to all of the folks at UAF and the Poker Flat Research Range as well as the team from NASA who were willing to have us visit and see what they were working on as well as providing guidance on our projects.