Timeline

  • 1991
    Remote Sensing Satellite Transmission

    European Remote Sensing Satellite, ERS-1, launches on July 17. The Alaska SAR Facility, now the Alaska Satellite Facility, receives its first data transmission from ERS-1 less than a month later.

  • 1993
    D-Region Phenomena
    Red streaks of light against the dark sky

    Red sprites, flashes of light in the ionosphere above thunderstorms, are captured on video and determined to be a D-region phenomena. In July 1993, Davis Sentman and Eugene Westcott photograph intense Midwestern thunderstorms from a specially equipped high-altitude jet aircraft. They capture 19 images of sprites on video.

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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