GI Press Releases
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—Birds fly to Alaska from around the world to breed under the Midnight Sun. However, when days grow short and temperatures drop, only a handful remain to brave the winter in Interior Alaska. On Feb. 17, the fifth installment in the Science for Alaska Lecture Series will examine the wintering strategies of Interior birds that rely only on their muscles, feathers and fat to help them through the long, cold winter. 
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as S.A.D., is a seasonal mood disorder to which we in the North are particularly sensitive. The disorder is associated with a decrease in sunlight and involves a series of mood changes that are usually depressive in nature. In
Fairbanks, where the winter days are often short, many residents get the winter blues and find they require more sleep and more food to satisfy their appetite.
Second mission a success in 2009 rocket campaign at Poker Flat Research Range
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—After days of waiting for precise aurora conditions, a team from the University of Iowa finally saw the launch of its two scientific sounding rockets from Poker Flat Research Range. The NASA rockets launched Jan. 29, just before 1 a.m. Alaska Standard Time, and flew through an auroral curtain, collecting data throughout their flights.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—The University of Alaska purchased its unmanned aircraft in 2006 and the 40-pound robotic plane can fly up to 20 hours at a time, collecting data even through the harshest conditions. These superlatives make the Insitu A-20 an ideal tool for scientists that need information from areas that are often difficult or dangerous to get to.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—The University of Alaska purchased its unmanned aircraft in 2006 and the 40-pound robotic plane can fly up to 20 hours at a time, collecting data even through the harshest conditions. These superlatives make the Insitu A-20 an ideal tool for scientists that need information
from areas that are often difficult or dangerous to get to.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—It's hard to conduct experiments on something you can't reach. When it comes to research on the aurora, scientists have worked their way around this problem by taking the experiment to the aurora, using rockets that fly more than 100 miles above Earth.
First rocket experiment of 2009 launches from Poker Flat Research Range
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—University of Alaska Fairbanks students watched eagerly as their rocket project launched successfully from Poker Flat Research Range on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009. The Ionospheric Science and Inertial Sensing project, called ISIS for short, launched at 2:17 p.m. Alaska
Standard Time and flew as designed to the D-region of the ionosphere. A NASA sounding rocket carried the experiment to an altitude of nearly 61 vertical miles.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—A total of eight National Aeronautics and Space Administration sounding rockets will launch from Poker Flat Research Range in 2009. The rocket season is split into two launch windows. The first launch window opens Jan. 10, and will remain open until Feb. 5, 2009.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska— A new technique allows scientists to determine the landscape of locales more than 48 million miles from Earth. The method determines the diameter, depth and overall shape of other planets’ surface craters from shadows visible in images captured from probes traveling through the Milky Way. John Chappelow, a postdoctoral fellow with the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is developing a computer program called CRATERZ, based on the method. The program will read an image’s resolution, and the solar elevation and azimuth to calculate the diameter, depth and parameters to describe the shapes of surface craters on celestial bodies millions of miles away.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—An ice-free Arctic has the potential to unlock a wealth of resources that have long been inaccessible, buried beneath the ocean floor. This year, Russia nabbed a slew of attention for its claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is simply an extension of the Siberian continental shelf, an area believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves.
