Ned Rozell | Alaska Science

Astrophysicists Lindsay Glesener and Sabrina Savage wait for the conditions to be ideal before launching a pair of rockets loaded with testing instruments into the atmosphere.

Kunali was delivered from the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage to Fairbanks, where its skin, tissue and bones will aid scientists in the future.

An expert in space physics at the UAF Geophysical Institute, Peter Delamere finished third in the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350 bike race.

In the far north, where night will soon be in short supply, nocturnal animals like flying squirrels and owls need to go about their business in daylight.

None of the four members of the Salty Science team had rowing experience, but they managed to win the World’s Toughest Row women’s division after crossing more than 3,000 miles of ocean.

One Alaska geologist’s explanation: With a lack of the freeze-thaw process that other mountains experience, Denali doesn’t erode as quickly as others.

Water covering a trail known as aufeis happens because underground springs pump water toward the surface no matter how cold the air above.

Most are on or near volcanoes, with very hot water bubbling or steaming up from deep below, where Earth’s great crustal plates are grinding past one another.

The magic number is minus 30: That’s the Fahrenheit temperature threshold at which air is cold enough for ice fog to form.

The oranging of northern rivers seems to be related to recent permafrost thaw that has allowed streams to release previously captive iron, trace metals and acid.

A recent cold snap has left temperatures across the state in the negative double digits and even as cold as minus 50 degrees.

Volcanic features near Healy are within a region scientists have named the “Denali Volcanic Gap,” reflecting a puzzling absence of volcanoes from Mount Spurr to the Wrangell Mountains in eastern Alaska.

Recent carbon dating of many elements at a site called Swan Point indicates that mammoths and people existed at the same time in Alaska about 14,000 years ago.

The gnat larvae move in columns, possibly to keep their fragile bodies moist when crossing dry ground.

Scientists used tree samples gathered in 1940 to determine that average Alaska temperatures from May to August were about 44 degrees, nearly 10 degrees below normal.