NASA Successfully Launches EZIE Mission to Explore Earth’s Electrojets with Help from Citizen Scientists  | NASA

NASA‘s Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday, March 14, to study Earth’s Electrojets and improve space weather predictions.

EZIE consists of three small Blue Canyon Technologies CubeSat satellites that will move in formation between 260 and 370 miles above the Earth, mapping auroral electrojets using the Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The satellites successfully deployed on March 15, following their ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Electrojets

Electrojets are powerful electric currents that travel in the ionosphere, generated when solar winds bring solar storm energy to the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Three electrojets circle the Earth: the equatorial electrojet at the magnetic equator and the auroral electrojets at the magnetic poles. The auroral electrojets flow through the D and E regions of the auroral ionosphere with incredible strength and persistence. Brightly visible auroras are counterparts to the electrojets resulting from the same solar events.

“Missions have studied these currents before, but typically either at the very large or very small scales,” said Larry Kepko, EZIE mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “EZIE will help us understand how these currents…more