The Miles Lab, sponsored by NASA, is restoring and advancing the nation’s capability to make high-fidelity magnetic field measurements needed to investigate space weather that can impact our communication and power grids on Earth and our assets in space.

A study from University of Iowa researchers reveals that the aurora borealis — the northern lights — appear brighter when electromagnetic waves in space interact with particles inside the aurora. Connor Feltman, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa, examined data from two rockets that were launched into the aurora from Andøya, Norway, in 2022, an Iowa-led experiment known as the ACES-II mission.