| On March 13, 1997 a sounding rocket equipped to study pulsating aurora was launched into the recovery phase of a small magnetic substorm. The launch originated from Poker Flat, Alaska and moved northward, reaching a apogee of 385 km and crossing field lines from L = 5.6 to L = 8. This sounding rocket was the first to have instruments designed to measure the upgoing and downgoing electron precipitation in the region over a pulsating auroral event. Nine pulsations were observed during the course of the 10 minute flight.; This dissertation discusses the design, fabrication and calibration of the particle detection instruments, which include solid state telescopes (SST's) and an electrostatic analyzer (ESA). Observations led to an inferred parallel electric field above the rocket, the first time such a field had been associated with pulsating aurora. The data showed that there were no pulsations for electrons with energies less than 5 keV for pitch-angles between 22° and 90° but pulsations were seen for electrons from 5 keV down to 1 keV for field aligned precipitating electrons and for all upgoing electrons. Furthermore, the greatest change between background and pulsation occurred for electrons between 10 and 20 keV with pitch-angles between 50° and 90°. Observations also showed anomolous pitch-angle distributions, with larger than expected fluxes of high energy electrons leaving the ionosphere. Also missing from the data is evidence of either velocity dispersed arrival of electrons or 3 Hz oscillations.; The data analysis of the measurements provided many new insights into pulsating aurora and has raised questions about the source of the pulsating mechanism and the mechanism itself. The data are compared to three current theoretical models and we find that they cannot adequately describe the observations. Other models are discussed and also discarded as being unable to explain all of the observations. |
