Two sounding rockets were launched this week from the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska. The rocket launched three days ago carried NASA Goddard's DISSIPATION mission into an aurora to understand how auroras heat the atmosphere and cause high-altitude winds.

Figure 1:
Long exposure photograph of a sounding rocket launched into a night sky highlighted by the aurora. The sounding rocket is a bright white line emerging from a snow-covered ground and moving from bottom left to top right. A small break in the line indicates that the first stage of the rocket has burned out and the second stage has ignited. A soft green aurora frames the edges of the image, and many white stars speckle the black sky. The bright green line extending toward the top of the frame is a lidar beam. A fisheye lens was used for the photograph, creating a curve for the ground and the lidar beam.

Figure 2:
Long exposure photograph of a sounding rocket launched into a cloudy night sky. The sounding rocket is a bright white line emerging from a snow-covered ground and moving from bottom left to top right. In the lower part of the frame the ground is covered with snow and to the right of the frame there is a photographer setting up two camera tripods.