Meet ICON: NASA’s Airglow Explorer

  • Released Wednesday, October 18, 2017
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Music credit: Design Principle by Wayne Roberts

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NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON launches in fall 2018. It orbits above the upper atmosphere, through the bottom edge of near-Earth space. From this vantage point, ICON observes both the upper atmosphere and a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere, which extends from about 50 to 360 miles above the surface of Earth. Processes in the ionosphere also create bright swaths of color in the sky, known as airglow. ICON will observe how interactions between Earth's weather and the ionosphere create such shimmering airglow as well as other changes in the space environment.


Find more views of the ionosphere from the International Space Station at The Crew Earth Observations Video Page

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Wednesday, October 18, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.

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