Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The northern lights blazing in a Canadian night sky signal that activity is taking place in the region of space near the Earth. Yet many details of this activity remain unknown. The "geomagnetic substorm" is still a mystery of geophysics despite many years of study. By looking at parts of it and what is happening globally when it explodes into being, we will gain vital clues. The flow of plasma around the Earth is a part of the substorm that can be studied from the ground. We measure tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic field due to electrical currents that thread the aurora. Along with measurements from research satellites, if the timing is right, these can tell is what conditions are like near or inside the auroral disturbances. Due to the difficulty in obtaining and interpreting data, the aurora has been mysterious. We will characterize its behaviour as an important part of coming to understand it and the nearby region of space known as the magnetosphere. Modern technologies in instrumentation and communications, some developed at Athabasca University, allow us to make great strides in obtaining the information we need. Further, we now have techniques to better organize and understand the data. The project focusses on auroral forms, and their magnetic signatures. These forms seem to be stirred up like waves on a water surface, telling us about stormy conditions in space. Alberta has great advantages in being a good place to see the aurora, along with good communications facilities. Our instruments are coupled to many in Canada, including new ones in Quebec. Our instrumentation will be installed to operate at the same time as the Canadian ePOP-CASSIOPE and the American THEMIS satellites, to maximize what we can learn by studying the aurora from the ground. We expect to fully understand certain auroras under study, making an important contribution to solving the auroral substorm problem.