CINEMA mission will explore auroras and Earth's mysterious magnetotail

CINEMA mission will explore auroras and Earth's mysterious magnetotail

Every winter, thousands of tourists travel to high-latitude regions like Scandinavia, Canada, and Alaska hoping to see the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. Vincent Ledvina, an aurora guide and Ph.D. student in space physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, estimates he leads 1,000 people on aurora tours each year. Some ask Ledvina how the dazzling curtains of light are created, and he tells them that auroras occur when high-energy parti…