PIXIE

I stumbled upon this site while working on a new physical geography textbook.  Physical geography has all the hot photos!  This image (see left & click on it) shows the earth's auroras as seen from space, and it was captured through The Polar Ionospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment (PIXIE)!  Here's a brief description of the process:

"PIXIE is an electronic camera which images the earth's aurora in x-rays. By imaging these x-rays and measuring their energies across a broad energy range, PIXIE determines the fluxes and characteristic energies of the parent electrons. This information is used to determine other important characteristics of the ionosphere, and of the interactions between the earth's upper atmosphere, ionosphere, radiation belts, and magnetosphere."

NASA has an aurora movie available too!

Comments

[Ted]

People can debate whether we should go to Mars and the Moon, but there is no question that the pictures from NASA are amazing.