Bad Astronomy

Up, up, and aurora

This is pretty neat: Project Aether is a program to inspire students about science and engineering by performing hands-on experiments with high-altitude balloons. A group of scientists, teachers, and students from the project traveled to Denali Park in Alaska to launch 30 balloons and get images of the aurorae from “eye-level”, so to speak. The video they made has a good, short description of the phenomenon, and talks about how they set this up.

It’s an amazing time to be learning about science. I wish I had had access to something like this when I was a kid!

Tip o’ the parka hood to It’s OK to Be Smart.

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