NASA sounding rocket launches, studies heating of sun's active regions

Investigators at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will use observations from a recently-launched sounding rocket mission to provide a clearer image of how and why the sun's corona grows so much hotter than the visible surface of Earth's parent star. The MaGIXS-2 mission—short for the second flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer—launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Tuesday, July 16.