NASA set to launch three rockets into solar eclipse on April 8; here’s why

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is set to launch three sounding rockets when the total solar eclipse happening on April 8, from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

NASA plans to launch these three rockets before, during, and after the moon's shadow turns day into night on Monday. With this mission, their goal is to collect enough data on how sudden dimming in sunlight during a solar eclipse impacts the ionosphere, leading to disturbances that could interfere with radio and satellite communication.

What is the ionosphere?

The ionosphere, situated between 90 to 500 kilometers above the Earth's surface, is an electrified region in the atmosphere. Mission leader Aroh Barjatya explains it as a reflective and refractive medium for radio waves, notably influencing satellite communication since these signals traverse.

Barjatya and his team plan to launch three rockets from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. Through this facility, the moon will block only 81.4% of the sun's light, but the team wishes to use the temporary dimming in order to understand just how widespread the "wake" created by the solar eclipse is.

"We are super excited to relaunch [the rockets] during the total eclipse, to see if the perturbations start at the same altitude and if their magnitude and scale remain the same," Barjatya said in a NASA statement.

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