Multimedia Gallery
Aurora Borealis Over Sondrestrom (Image 1)
Aurora borealis--the "northern lights"--light the sky over the Sondrestrom upper atmospheric research facility in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.
Located just north of the Arctic Circle and 100 kilometers inland from the west coast of Greenland, the Sondrestrom facility is dedicated to studying the polar upper atmosphere. The facility is operated by SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, and in joint cooperation with Denmark's Meteorological Institute. The facility has been operating in Greenland since 1983, and continues to be in high demand by the international and national scientific communities.
This facility is host to more than 20 optical and radiowave instruments operated for a variety of universities and government labs, the majority of which provide unique and complementary information about the arctic upper atmosphere. Together, these instruments advance our knowledge of upper atmospheric physics and determine how the tenuous neutral gas interacts with the charged space plasma environment. The suite of instrumentation supports many disciplines of research--from plate tectonics to auroral physics and space weather. The facility instrumentation covers the electromagnetic spectrum while the data results span the spectrum of polar research. To learn more, visit the facility's website Here. (Date of Image: 1992) [See related image here.]
Credit: Craig J. Heinselman
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