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Researchers with the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program ( HAARP ) project in Alaska tickled the upper ambience to the extent that it beam with unripened speckles .
The fleck were sprinkled amid a natural display known as the aurora borealis , or Northern Lights . The aurora happen when electrons from a cloud of hot gasolene , cognise as blood plasma , rain down down from space and excite molecules in the ionosphere , about 30 miles ( 50 kilometers ) up .
Images from the HAARP camera showing speckle-like artificial optical emissions superimposed on the background natural aurora only during frames when the transmitter was on. The experiment was conducted 26 January 2025 and the results released Feb. 2, 2005.
The HAARP experimentation demand acres of transmitting aerial and a 1 megawatt author . The scientist post wireless pulsing skyward every 7.5 seconds , explained team drawing card Todd Pederson of the Air Force Research Laboratory .
" The radio moving ridge trip up to the ionosphere , where they excite the electrons in the plasma , " Pederson toldLiveScience . " These electrons then collide with atmospheric gasses , which then give off light , as in a neon tube . "
Pederson and his colleagues missed the show , but they snapped image .
" We unfortunately were indoors watching the data on monitor during the experiment and were interfering scrambling sample to make certain the effects were existent and not some glitch with the equipment , " he said . " We knew mightily aside it was something over-the-top to show up in real time on the monitor against the raw cockcrow , but did not reassert that it would have been visible to the naked eye until a twenty-four hour period or two later when we had a chance to calibrate the raw data . "
The experimentation is detail in the Feb. 2 takings of the journalNature .
The research could improve savvy of the aurora and also help oneself explicate how the ionosphere adversely strike radio communications .
It is not yet clear if the sunrise must already be active before an artificial sky show can be induced , says Karl Ziemelis , chief physics editor at the daybook .
If no pre - existing aurora is require , Ziemelis said , " we are left with the tantalizing ( some would say confuse ) possibility that such receiving set - fuel emissions could form the basis of a technology for urban firing , celestial advertising , and more . "
