Greetings From Utqiagvik, Alaska!

Hello from Utqiagvik, Alaska in late February of 2024! This picture was taking during my year-long biennial Arctic Geophysics undergraduate research class. The students in this class choose their own research area dealing with the sea ice, and then I work with them to build – to MacGyver! – their own microcontroller-based sensors to collect data to address their research question. Most students are there for one of two weeks, with half the class the first week and half the second. One or two of the students are there for both weeks, depending on their particular project. The trip is in late February/early March, when the sea ice is thickest.

This picture was taken one evening when the aurorae put on a particularly spectacular display. We were staying in a dormitory located off the northern end of the grounds of the former Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL), which is itself just north of Utqiagvik. This had fewer street lights than the main NARL grounds, and afforded amazing views of these celestial fireworks. This picture shows one of my students on top of a snow/ice pile just behind (inland side of) the building, caught up in the moment of seeing this phenomenon. He had no idea that I was behind him for this picture, and I was fortunate to capture him howling with his rock hammer in his “hammer of the gods” moment. His unbridled joy is apparent at viewing our sun’s deadly particle stream being turned into these harmless and beautiful high-atmosphere light displays by a happy conspiracy of Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, and leaves an indelible impression.

In addition to experiencing these bucket-list auroral marvels, my students get the chance to do research under difficult conditions in an extreme environment, so often surprising themselves at what they can accomplish. So many of them refer to this experience – both the research and living in that beautiful area – as “life-changing,” and I can honestly say the same thing myself.

—Dr. Rhett Herman, Professor of Physics, Radford University, Radford, VA, USA.