Five New Satellites With a Mission of Finding a Source of Color in Space

NASA plans on shuttling five satellites under the name of Themis, to observe and further understand substorm phenomenons occurring above the earth’s atmosphere. The paper states that these phenomenons occur due to the leakage of solar wind particles into earth’s magnetosphere; where these particles head towards the earths poles and collide with the air molecules, thus causing a greenish-whitish halo glow in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, these glows can only be viewed from space, and occur randomly, and may aid the destructive force of storms that originate from solar eruptions. The five satellites are scheduled to be launched on February 15, and currently, this $200 million dollar mission is waiting for observation before completion. The paper quotes an expert from University of California, Berkeley; however, it did not seem as if it had come from an article. This paper became news due to the amount of money invested in this project, and the passion that the scientists have for the glowing space phenomenons. I didn’t find anything difficult to understand about this paper, in fact, it gave a complete background of all the new scientific information it talked about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/science/space/23ligh.html?ex=1327208400&en=fe2ecdc3a3adadf7&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss