July 17, 2008

Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 dwayne c brown@nasa gov

Laura Layton Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md 301-286-8170 laura a layton@nasa gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M08-133

NASA TELECONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE NORTHERN LIGHTS FINDINGS

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a media teleconference on Thursday, July 24, at 1 p m EDT, to announce the first results from a fleet of five satellites that have discovered what powers sudden brightening and rapid movements of the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis

The satellites comprise NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission Launched in February 2007, the satellite constellation is helping resolve the mystery of what triggers geomagnetic substorms, or atmospheric events visible in the Northern Hemisphere Data from the mission may help protect commercial satellites and humans living in space from the adverse effects of particle radiation

Briefing participants: - Vassilis Angelopoulos, THEMIS principal investigator, University of California, Los Angeles - David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md - Chuck Goodrich, THEMIS program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington - Nicola Fox, scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md

To participate in the teleconference, reporters should call Laura Layton at 301-286-8170 for dial-in instructions Supporting information for the briefing will be posted at noon July 24 at:

http://www nasa gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/themis_power_media html

For more information about THEMIS, visit:

http://www nasa gov/themis

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