AZURE Vapor Tracers over Norway
Image Credit & Copyright: Yang Sutie
Explanation: What's happening in the sky?The atmosphere over northern Norway appeared quite strange for about 30 minuteslast Friday when colorful clouds, dots, and plumes suddenly appeared. Thecolors were actually created by the NASA-funded Auroral Zone Upwelling RocketExperiment (AZURE) which dispersed gas tracers to probe winds in Earth's upperatmosphere. AZURE's tracers originated from two short-lived sounding rocketslaunched from the Andøya Space Center in Norway. The harmless gases,trimethylaluminum and a barium/strontium mixture, were released into theionosphere at altitudes of 115 and 250 km. The vapor trails were observeddispersing from several ground stations. Mapping how AZURE's vapors dispersedshould increase humanity's understanding of how the solar wind transfers energyto the Earth and powers aurora.
挪威上空的AZURE蒸汽示踪剂
天空上发生了什么？上周五，在挪威北部上空的大气中发生了一次奇怪的现象，突然出现的彩云、光斑和羽流，大概持续了30分钟。实际上，这些颜色是由NASA资助的极光区气流上涌火箭实验（AZURE）产生的，该实验释放气体示踪剂，以用来探测地球上层大气中的风系。AZURE示踪剂来源于挪威Andøya太空中心发射的两枚短期探空火箭。无害气体三甲基铝和钡锶混合物被释放到海拔115千米和250千米的电离层。我们从地面基站可以观测到蒸汽示踪剂的消散。测绘AZURE蒸汽示踪剂是如何消散的，将会帮助人类更加了解太阳风是如何把能量传输到地球并激发极光的。
近期文章：
Astronomy Picture of the Day——通往火星之路
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