Aurora Hunting By Air

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 14

Aurora Hunting By Air

Twenty-five American geophysical scientists climbed into a military Boeing transport at Christchurch airport on Sunday and last evening to go aurora hunting halfway between New Zealand and the Ant* arctic.

On each of the nights the men have spent five hours of intensive scientific research in their well-equipped flying laboratory. The Boeing has operated at 30.000 ft about 1200 miles south of the Dominion.

Dr. H. C. Reynolds, the scientific leader of the research mission, said in Christ church yesterday that the scientists were all representatives of the Atomic Energy

Commission drawn from various laboratories in the United States under contract to the A.E.C. The research mission would last for about a month, said Dr. Reynolds. Missions using the specially equipped aircraft were held once or twice a year. For the rest of the year the scientists analysed the data collected from the flights. The visit to New Zealand, which would end on Friday, was primarily to study aurora. Another aircraft, similarly equipped, was doing identical work on auroral studies at Anchorage, Alaska.

So far the scientists have seen one aurora. In flight the scientists conduct cosmic ray and airglow experiments. Dr. Reynolds said it was hoped to shed light on the cause of the aurora. “We would like to know if the auroral phenomena in the Northern Hemisphere are

identical to those observed in, the south and if not, why' not? “Our cosmic ray experiments are to measure the earth’s magnetic fields. In addition we make a number of radio frequency experiments to see if the ‘dawn chorus’ and ‘whistlers’ connected with the auroral phenomena are similar in each hemisphere,” he said. Dr. Reynolds said the two Boeings left together from Hawaii. “We flew south to the equator together, then our plane went on to American Samoa and the other plane flew back to Hawaii. We then came to Christchurch and the sister plane went to Anchorage.” He said the Boeings were used by the A.E.C. for a number of geophysical experiments. Last northern autumn one was flown to South America to observe the eclipse of the sun. Cosmic ray re-

search flights were made over Canada and the United States. The Boeing would leave Christchurch on. Friday for Guam from where it would fly westward around the globe across Africa and South America. There would be an exchange of scientists at Guam because of the changing character of future experiments, said Dr. Reynolds. The sister aircraft in Alaska would at the end of the research mission, fly back td Hawaii and then return to the United States. Yesterday staff and science graduates from the University of Canterbury and representatives from the Geophysical Laboratory, and the Magnetic Survey in Christchurch, and the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Institute from Wellington, were shown over the Boeing and its cabins full of complex electronic equipment. About 30 were in the party.