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Airglow and Earth’s Magnetic Field

illustration of Earth with magnetic field lines and airglow
Around Earth's equator, bright swaths of color known as airglow, can appear hovering at about 50 to 300 miles above the surface of Earth. These are the result of a complex interaction between Earth's magnetic field lines – shown in this illustration as white lines connecting the North and South poles – and terrestrial weather.

Around Earth’s equator, bright swaths of color known as airglow, can appear hovering at about 50 to 300 miles above the surface of Earth. These are the result of a complex interaction between Earth’s magnetic field lines – shown in this illustration as white lines connecting the North and South poles – and terrestrial weather. NASA’s ICON mission, led by a team at the University of California at Berkeley, will study such interactions in the near-Earth space environment.

Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Duberstein