NASA launched a satellite on Thursday night to explore the mysterious, dynamic region where air meets space. The satellite — called ICON, short for Ionospheric Connection Explorer — rocketed into orbit following a two-year delay. The ionosphere is the charged part of the upper atmosphere extending several hundred miles (kilometers) up. It’s in constant flux as space weather bombards it from above and Earth weather from below, sometimes disrupting radio communications. He added: “ICON goes where the action is.”A NASA satellite launched last year, Gold, is also studying the upper atmosphere, but from much higher up.

Source: The Hindu October 11, 2019 06:11 UTC