Side-by-side views show two NASA sounding rockets lifting off 30 seconds apart from Poker Flat Research Range early Feb. 10, 2026, their bright trails rising past faint green aurora during a mission to investigate how the ionosphere influences visible auroral structures. Photos by Bryan Whitten

Third 2026 mission launches from Poker Flat Research Range

February 10, 2026
A tandem of NASA sounding rockets blasted off from Poker Flat Research Range at about 1:30 a.m. today on a mission to better understand how...
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Under a sky filled with green northern lights and stars, a second NASA sounding rocket launches from Poker Flat Research Range around 3:30 a.m., its brilliant plume rising above snow-covered ground in a mission to investigate black aurora.

Black aurora mission launches from Poker Flat

February 9, 2026
A second NASA sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range at about 3:30 a.m. today in a mission to study a form of northern lights...
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One of ACUASI's two new Windracers ULTRA MK1 aircraft at the ACUASI hangar in Nenana, Alaska, on Jan. 23, 2026. Photo by Bryan Whitten

ACUASI successfully tests parachute delivery with new drone

February 3, 2026
One of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ two new twin-engine unmanned aircraft circled Nenana Municipal Airport, descended and turned toward a...
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A two-stage NASA sounding rocket launches from Poker Flat Research Range at 4:20 a.m. Jan. 30, 2026, as part of a Virginia Tech project studying nitric oxide produced by the aurora. Photo by Bryan Whitten

First rocket of 2026 takes flight at Poker Flat

January 30, 2026
A two-stage NASA sounding rocket shot skyward from Poker Flat Research Range at 4:20 a.m. today as part of a long-running project to learn more...
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Three missions, four rockets: Poker Flat is ready for launch

January 29, 2026
The 2026 Poker Flat Research Range launch season opens late Thursday night, Jan. 29, with the first of three missions studying the aurora and the...
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Retractable coverings — the blue rectangular structures — cover two of the four launchpads at Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Three missions, four rockets: Poker Flat ready for launches

January 27, 2026
The 2026 Poker Flat Research Range launch season opens this week with the first of three missions studying the aurora and the upper atmosphere...
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Graduate student researcher Emily Graham presents her research during the 2025 lecture series. Photo by LJ Evans

Science for Alaska talks and events announced

January 20, 2026
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute will host free public science talks over the next few weeks, highlighting new climate...
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Ice fog shrouds a Fort Wainwright neighborhood near Fairbanks on Dec. 31, 2025. Photo by Sara Eliza Johnson

Alaska climate report: December’s deep cold, deep snow

January 14, 2026
The title page of the Alaska Climate Research Center’s monthly summary for December crisply explained what a busy weather month it was across the...
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Discussion in a tent at a remote lake led to a new look at Alaska tectonic activity 75 million to 50 million years ago, a period spanning the Late Cretaceous through the early Paleogene. The two geologists determined that the concurrent events of the Western Alaska rotation and Southeast Alaska metamorphism from the addition of crust created the curvature seen today — an orocline in geologic terms. It can be seen in the arc of the Alaska Range mountains, Wrangell Mountains and St. Elias Mountains and the southern coastline.
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A new view of old Alaska

January 9, 2026
Discussion in a tent at a remote lake led to a new look at Alaska tectonic activity 75 million to 50 million years ago, a period spanning the...
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The West Ridge research area at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is nestled against the frosted woodlands in November. Photo by Eric Marshall

Alaska climate report: November anything but normal

December 9, 2025
November brought two wildly differing snow stories to Alaska, according to the monthly summary from the Alaska Climate Research Center at the...
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In this photo taken from an aircraft, the atmosphere glows after the United States detonated a nuclear device 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean on July 9, 1962. Photo courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory

Research offers defense against energized space electrons

December 9, 2025
Research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute is advancing the ability to quickly clean up Earth’s radiation belts from a...
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The November 2025 cover of the Geological Society of America’s magazine features research by UAF professor Sean Regan and colleagues.

Research straightens out what caused the arc under Alaska’s mountains

December 5, 2025
Two related major tectonic processes that occurred simultaneously 75 million to 50 million years ago created the grand arc on which three Alaska...
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Changing channels

November 26, 2025
Far up in Alaska, between 64.593 degrees north latitude and 66.870 degrees, sit 11 research sites emblematic of the wide-scale change being...
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UAF graduate student Cole Richards installs a high-sampling seismic sensor in February 2019. It is one 400 placed along the Parks Highway following the 2018 magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake. Graduate student Bella Seppi would later use the sensor data in her aircraft research. Photo by Carl Tape

Seismic data can identify aircraft by type

November 18, 2025
Instruments typically used to detect the ground motion of earthquakes can also be used to identify the type of aircraft flying far overhead...
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A light beam produced by the new lidar emerges from the dome at the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory at Gakona. Photo by Mike Roddewig

New lidar advances atmospheric science at UAF research site

November 14, 2025
A new science tool at the University of Alaska Fairbanks research center in Gakona will advance understanding of Earth’s middle and upper...
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Tom Glass and Rodrigo Rangel navigate a beaver pond on the northern Seward Peninsula in August 2024. Photo by Benjamin Jones

Beavers’ Arctic expansion quickens impact of region's warming

November 13, 2025
The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost...
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The aurora shines over Fairbanks on Oct. 5, 2024. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Triple blast of solar activity sets stage for active aurora show

November 11, 2025
An unusual triple-whammy of solar outbursts, including one scientists call a cannibal, began hitting Earth this afternoon and is likely to bring...
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Marita and Walt Babula walk hand in hand Oct. 11, 2025, at the site of a 65-seat planetarium. The Babulas made a previously anonymous donation of $7.4 million to the project. Photo by Bryan Whitten

UAF planetarium set for spring opening

October 30, 2025
A decades-long dream of a planetarium at the University of Alaska Museum of the North will come to fruition this spring when the University of...
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About

Since it was established by an Act of Congress in 1946, scientists at the Geophysical Institute have studied geophysical processes from the center of the Earth to the surface of the sun and beyond, turning data and observations into information useful for state, Arctic and national priorities.

Contact info

The GI is located on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

2156 Koyukuk Drive
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775

We acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral lands our campuses reside. In Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River.

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