A new NASA sounding rocket mission will soon take to the Alaskan skies. The LAMP mission, short for Loss through Auroral Microburst Pulsations, will fly above an often-overlooked kind of northern lights to test a theory on what causes them. The launch window at Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, opens on Feb. 24, 2022.

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, is a familiar treat to those who call northern latitudes home. Auroras come in different shapes and colors, waving their ribbons of vibrant green, red and purple across the sky. But one variety of aurora displays a peculiar behavior: it pulsates.

NASA is launching a prototype instrument that could make it easier to monitor volcanic activity and air quality. Perched aboard a CubeSat about 300 miles (480 kilometers) above Earth's surface, the "Nanosat Atmospheric Chemistry Hyperspectral Observation System," or NACHOS, will use a compact hyperspectral imager to locate sources of trace gasses in areas as small as 0.15 square miles (0.4 square kilometers)—about the size of the Mall of America in Minnesota. NACHOS is part of Northrop Grumman's 17th resupply mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.

If successful, NACHOS will be the smallest, highest resolution space-based instrument dedicated to monitoring atmospheric trace gasses like sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen dioxide, paving the way for future Earth-observing systems that will not only help predict volcanic eruptions, but also monitor air quality around specific cities, neighborhoods, and even individual power plants.