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NASA's long-duration balloon mission observed bright blue clouds waving at the edge of the earth's atmosphere. The mission is to help researchers understand how energy is transmitted through the layers of the atmosphere.
The phenomenon, called nocturnal clouds or polar mesospheric clouds, occurs 80 kilometers above the Earth's poles in summer, just after sunset. Clouds form as ice crystals grow on minute fragments of meteors in the region of the Earth's atmosphere called the mesosphere. NASA 's PMC Turbo mission sent a huge balloon in July 2018 to take a closer look at the phenomenon and gather information on movements in the Earth' s atmosphere; According to a NASA press release, the balloon captured 6 million high-resolution photos while floating in the Arctic for five days. The balloon traveled from Sweden to Canada.
"From what we've seen so far, we expect to have a truly spectacular data set," said Dave Fritts, principal investigator of the PMC Turbo mission at Global Atmospheric Technologies and Sciences in Toronto. Boulder, Colorado. "Our cameras were likely to capture really interesting events, and we hope that [the photos] will provide new information on these complex dynamics. " [Strange Clouds Spotted at the Edge of Space]
The ripple and the flow of the clouds reflect the movement of air in the upper atmosphere resulting in a phenomenon called atmospheric gravity waves – not to be confused with the gravitational waves created by the collision of massive objects in deep space.
A NASA balloon mission examined the wavy electric blue clouds found over the Earth's poles during twilight in the summer.
Credit: Joy Ng Goddard Space Center / NASA
Gravity waves are oscillations in the atmosphere that are formed when the air rises or falls and hits obstacles. This can occur when, for example, the atmospheric layers collide or the airflow enters the mountain ranges. Atmospheric gravity waves are normally invisible, but can be seen as they pass through nocturnal clouds.
"This is the first time we are able to visualize the flow of energy from larger gravity waves toward lower flow instabilities and lower turbulence in the upper atmosphere," he said. Fritts. "At these altitudes, you can literally see the gravity waves breaking – like the waves of the ocean on the beach – and the cascades towards turbulence."
The researchers also used a lidar system to measure, for the first time, precise cloud elevations and temperature changes above and below clouds. By observing gravity waves through these clouds, scientists can learn more about how turbulence works in the upper atmosphere, as well as other fluid systems, such as oceans, lakes, and other planets' atmospheres. .
Email Sarah Lewin at [email protected] or follow her @SarahExplains. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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