AIM Stories

Editor’s Note: This article was edited to add information about mission partner institutions. After 16 years studying Earth’s highest clouds for the benefit of humanity – polar mesospheric clouds – from its orbit some 350 miles above the ground, NASA’s…

Near Earth’s North and South poles, wispy, iridescent clouds often shimmer high in the summertime sky around dusk and dawn. These night-shining, or noctilucent, clouds are sometimes spotted farther from the poles as well, at a rate that varies dramatically…

It’s time for the Geminids, the annual December meteor shower! Every year, Earth passes through the debris trail from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The pea-sized rocks it leaves behind burn up in our atmosphere, producing glowing trails in the night…

Summer in Antarctica is marked by days in which the Sun never sets, balmy temperatures that hover as high as freezing, and electric-blue clouds of ice. NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere mission — AIM for short — spotted…

Ice-blue clouds are drifting high above the Arctic, which means the Northern Hemisphere’s noctilucent cloud season is here.   NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere spacecraft — AIM for short — first spotted wisps of these noctilucent, or night-shining,…

On the cusp of our atmosphere live a thin group of seasonal electric blue clouds. Forming 50 miles above the poles in summer, these clouds are known as noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds — PMCs. A recent NASA long-duration…

Launched on April 25, 2007, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, mission, has provided a wealth of new science on the dynamics and composition of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Designed to study noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, AIM’s data…

Data from NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, spacecraft shows the sky over Antarctica is glowing electric blue due to the start of noctilucent, or night-shining, cloud season in the Southern Hemisphere – and an early one…

First spotted in 1885, silvery blue clouds sometimes hover in the night sky near the poles, appearing to give off their own glowing light. Known as noctilucent clouds, this phenomenon began to be sighted at lower and lower latitudes —…

Anyone who’s ever seen a noctilucent cloud or “NLC” would agree: They look alien. The electric-blue ripples and pale tendrils of NLCs reaching across the night sky resemble something from another world. Researchers say that’s not far off. A key…