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Earth Expeditions

    Laying Down with Smoke in the Valley, an Unexpected Camping Trip

    Bruce Anderson and the NASA Langley Mobile Lab in a valley near Stanley, Idaho. July 24, 2019.

    By Ellen Gray / NEAR STANLEY, IDAHO / Wednesday, July 24 We were ready to fly. We'd heard Tuesday evening that there were two seats open on the DC-8 for the communications team on Wednesday, but as often happens in the field, plans change. For the first science flight, requests for extra seats from the …

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    Fires and Smoke with FIREX-AQ: Live from Idaho

    NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory (left) and one of NOAA's Twin Otters (right) overfly fires and smoke during the FIREX-AQ campaign. They are being hosted by the Idaho National Guard's 124th Fighter Wing in Boise, Idaho.

    by Ellen Gray / BOISE, IDAHO/ NASA, NOAA and university researchers are on an Earth expedition this summer studying fires and their smoke in the U.S. West. On July 23 from Boise, Idaho, the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality or FIREX-AQ, kicked off its study of fire smoke, what gases …

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    Land Ho! Visiting a Young Island

    The three year-old volcanic island (black) as seen from the SEA drone. Credit: Woods Hole

    by Ellen Gray Excitement was in the air when research scientist Dan Slayback of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, approached a small trio of islands in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga. It was October 8th, and Dan had joined the scientists and students with the Sea Education Association's SEA Semester …

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    Meet Corey Walker, NASA Earth Science Intern and Aspiring Educator

    Corey Walker presents his research findings to the Student Airborne Research Program group. Credits: NASA / Megan Schill

    By Corey Walker / NASA ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER, PALMDALE, CALIFORNIA / My name is Corey Walker. One of the most incredible things I've done on paper is become a NASA intern through the agency's Student Airborne Research Program, otherwise known as SARP. Why? I grew up in Etowah County, Alabama which has a poverty …

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    On the Iceberg Highway

    by Carol Rasmussen / NORTHWEST GREENLAND / If you remember the movie Titanic, this looks like a terrible place for a cruise. But to a captain with a lifetime of experience navigating around Greenland, it was a safe passage. And to scientist Ian Fenty of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, it was a …

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    A Few of My Favorite (Frozen) Things

    by Kate Ramsayer / ANTARCTICA / I knew they were my favorite as soon as I saw them. Sastrugi, the ice dunes of the polar desert, covered the landscape when I first flew low over Antarctica with Operation IceBridge. They were amazing—winds had shaped them into repeating patterns, appearing as diamonds or fish scales or …

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    Iceberg Ahead!

    by Kate Ramsayer / THE SKIES ABOVE ANTARCTICA / The crack that would become B-46 was first noticed in September 2018 – and the berg broke the next month. NASA's Operation IceBridge flew over a new iceberg that is three times the size of Manhattan on Wednesday – the first known time anyone has laid …

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    Send Me a Postcard From Station P, Will You?

    Portrait photo of a person with short hair and sunglasses on top of their head wearing a collared button-up striped shirt; a chalkboard with symbols is visible in the background.

    Adrian Marchetti is an associate professor in the department of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was aboard the R/V Roger Revelle for the EXPORTS field campaign this August and September. So perhaps you read about the EXPORTS cruise and have heard about this place called Station P. You are …

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    Compasses Get Quite Unhappy When Every Direction Is North

    by Kate Ramsayer / 20,000 FEET ABOVE THE SOUTH POLE / This was my first flight over Antarctica, and the vast expanse of ice – just white on the ground and blue in the sky as far as the eye can see – took my breath away. As Operation IceBridge flew directly over the South …

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