Nature
News: The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (
HAARP), near Gakona,
Alaska, has for 20 years used radio waves to probe Earth's
magnetic field and ionosphere.
One of the most visible results of the experiments—since
the facility upgraded its transmission power output from 1 to
3.6 megawatts—is that they can create lights in the sky
that are similar to
auroras.The
technique works by using the high-frequency radio waves to
accelerate electrons in the atmosphere, increasing the energy
of their collisions and thereby creating a glow.In February
last year, HAARP unexpectedly managed to induce a strange
bull's-eye pattern in the night sky. "This is the really
exciting part—we've made a little artificial piece of
ionosphere," said
US Air Force Research
Laboratory physicist Todd Pedersen to
Nature's Naomi Lubick.
One of the most visible results of the experiments—since
the facility upgraded its transmission power output from 1 to
3.6 megawatts—is that they can create lights in the sky
that are similar to
auroras.The
technique works by using the high-frequency radio waves to
accelerate electrons in the atmosphere, increasing the energy
of their collisions and thereby creating a glow.In February
last year, HAARP unexpectedly managed to induce a strange
bull's-eye pattern in the night sky. "This is the really
exciting part—we've made a little artificial piece of
ionosphere," said
US Air Force Research
Laboratory physicist Todd Pedersen to
Nature's Naomi Lubick.
