Space Archives - Alaska Trekker

Streaking, Manmade Lights in the Sky

Streaking, Manmade Lights in the Sky By Ned Rozell I slept outside a few nights ago. Lying a platform of packed snow, my face looking upward from the sleeping bag, I squinted at the Big Dipper. Within a few minutes, what appeared to be a moving star slanted across the dipper. Then another. And another. [...]

What Causes the Aurora Borealis?

What Causes the Aurora Borealis? By Larry Gedney and Vladimir Degen During the early 19th century, some of the best scientific minds of the period believed that the aurora was caused by the reflection of sunlight from tiny ice crystals suspended high in the atmosphere. It remained for the Norwegian physicist Anders Angstrom (1814-1874) to [...]