Researchers have long sought to unravel the mysteries of the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights. In 2005, Dartmouth physics professor Kristina Lynch led a team that tried to answer a few of these mysteries with the Cascades-1 rocket, which failed to gather the desired information about the aurora when it was launched in 2005. On March 20, however, with new funding, Lynch and her team successfully collected data after launching the Cascades-2 Sounding Rocket through the aurora.