Atmospheric Tomography Mission (Atom) es el proyecto de investigacion por el cual viajaron alrededor de 44 cientificos desde la Nasa en el avion DC-8 que llego a tierra magallanicas este lunes 7 de mayo con la mision principal de sobrevalor la Antarctica.
Strapped into a NASA-modified DC-8, UC Irvine professor Donald Blake fiddles with some knobs on a crate that holds canisters that contain the key element of his career: Air.
The project is called the Atmospheric Tomography Mission (the acronym AToM is pronounced AY-tom, since it's not actually an atomic study). Basically, it's a DC8, crammed full of samplers and sensors, constantly measuring things like methane, carbon dioxide, and pollutants, as the plane flies around the globe, zig-zagging up and down between 500 ft and 30-40,000 feet.
The most important question at the daily briefing for NASA’s Atmospheric Tomography, or ATom, mission is: What are we flying through next? For the 30 scientists plus aircraft crew loaded up on NASA’s DC-8 flying research laboratory on a 10-flight journey around the world to survey the gases and particles in the atmosphere, knowing what’s ahead isn’t just about avoiding turbulence. It’s also about collecting the best data they can as they travel from the Arctic to the tropics then to the Antarctic and back again.
A NASA research plane carrying 42 scientists will fly over Central Otago next week on a mission to survey the atmosphere and measure pollution. NIWA atmospheric scientist Dave Pollard said the Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) was the first of its kind to survey the atmosphere over the oceans, measuring how much pollution survived and assessing how the environment had changed as a result.
In a first for Fiji, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory aircraft landed at the Nadi International Airport on Saturday.
Air pollution can be obvious when it is concentrated around cities and industrial centers. But what about the big parts of the atmosphere that are far from freeways or factories? Finding the answer to that question is the purpose of a NASA project that is sending an equipment-laden and scientist-packed DC-8 passenger jet around the world, over the middle of the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans, with brief stops in Anchorage and other locations.
Earth is a planet that breathes with the seasons. In winter months atmospheric gases and air pollution accumulate, waiting dormant until spring and summer bring sunshine and plant-life, sparking transformations that change the make-up of gases in the atmosphere. A NASA airborne mission will take a world-wide survey of these seasonal transformations by flying from the heart of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, down into the sunny summer in the Southern Hemisphere and back again.
Scientists treating Earth as a feverish patient are giving it the equivalent of a CAT scan, targeting short-life pollutants that spur climate change to try to find a remedy that dials back the heat.
Ambient aerosols – those tiny mixtures of liquids and solids suspended in air – play important roles in Earth's climate, so much so that scientists are heading to remote locations to better understand them.
