In general, the human eye does not see violet colors very well in darkness. Because the motion of the neutral portion of the clouds is not constrained by the magnetic field lines, they spread out more quickly and become too thin to see with the naked eye much sooner than the ionized component. In the mid-Atlantic region latitudes, the field lines are inclined by about 45 degrees to the horizontal, so the violet clouds stretch out in a slanted orientation and look more like short trails than a cloud. The ionized portion of the cloud becomes tied to the magnetic field lines and diffuses parallel to the field lines but not perpendicular to it. Immediately after release of the vapor, the spherical clouds are a mixture of green and violet, but that phase only lasts about 30 seconds when the un-ionized component of the cloud has diffused away. The vapor will be released approximately nine minutes and 30 seconds to around 10 minutes after launch at about 217-249 miles altitude over the Atlantic Ocean and 540-560 miles downrange from Wallops and just north of Bermuda.Īfter exposure to sunlight the vapor clouds quickly ionize and take on a violet color. The barium vapor, which is not harmful to the environment or public health, is not expected to form highly visible colorful clouds common to past missions from Wallops using vapor tracers. Two vapor clouds will form north of Bermuda about 9 minutes and 30 seconds after launch as part of the mission and may also be visible from eastern United States and Bermuda. This map shows when the rocket may be visible after launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. In-situ instruments will, however, measure the energized electrons directly," he said. It is possible the KiNET-X payload will generate auroral emissions on a very small scale, but that is an unknown aspect of this experiment.
"This is a very simple experiment with known input parameters that will allow us to quantify the flow of energy to the electrons. Two barium vapor clouds emitted from the rocket's payload will generate a magnetic field perturbation, and electrons are likely to be energized. "We know the power generated by Io's interaction, and we know the auroral power from the spot, but how are energy and momentum transported along the connecting magnetic field line?" said Delamere. The interaction between Io's atmosphere and Jupiter's space environment leads to an Io-induced auroral spot in Jupiter's atmosphere. Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system and has a tenuous atmosphere. The interaction between Io’s atmosphere and Jupiter’s space environment leads to an Io-induced auroral spot in Jupiter’s atmosphere. What is the energization mechanism?" said Peter Delamere, KiNET-X principal investigator from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.Īnother example of energy and momentum transport is the Io-Jupiter interaction.
Yet the aurora is generated by very high energy electrons. "The electrons in Earth's space environment and in the solar wind have relatively low energies. Auroras are formed when particles in the Earth's near-space environment interact with the atmosphere. The mission, called the KiNETic-scale energy and momentum transport eXperiment, or KiNet-X, is designed to study a very fundamental problem in space plasmas, namely, how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space that are magnetically connected?įor example, auroras. The launch may be visible in much of the eastern United States and Bermuda. EDT with a 40-minute launch window, Friday, May 7, 2021, on a NASA Black Brant XII sounding rocket. Launch for the mission is scheduled for 7:58 p.m.
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