A Wild Ride in Search of Meteors
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A Wild Ride
A weather balloon hits the stratosphere in search
of meteors
Right: Artist and Star Trails Society member Jack Egan created this rendering of the Meteor Balloon in flight. (Copyright 1999 J. Egan, all rights reserved)
Thanks to the balloons downward-pointing video camera, anyone with Internet access could watch the world from the balloons point of view. The live webcast featured images of the sunset as seen from 80,000 ft and eerie gurgling sounds caused by high altitude winds. Selected video highlights are now available for replay. They include a movie of the launch, sunset from the stratosphere, and an audio recording of the balloon bursting at 95,000 ft.
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The balloon reached a maximum altitude of 95,000 ft. The atmospheric pressure at this height caused the balloon to burst and the payload parachuted down in northwest Georgia at 8:37 p.m.
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"Local resident Chet Hale offered to drive them back across a cow pasture and through some gates until they saw the strobe light and heard the Sonalert beeper," says Bill Brown, a balloon launch volunteer. "Although the chase team woke him up in order to roam about on his property, Mr. Hale was quite thrilled about chasing the payload in the middle of the night."
"Last November's experiment went very well," says Dr. John Horack, a scientist at NASA Marshall. "After we recovered the payload we looked at these xerogel collectors with an electron microscope -- there were lots of tiny craters caused by impactors measuring 20 to 50 um. We caught something, but the question is, What did we catch - meteoroids, or something else?"
Sundays flight was intended to help answer that question. Unlike last year's flight, which took place during the most intense meteor shower since 1966, this mission coincided with an annual lull in meteor activity. Because meteor activity is greatest near dawn, Sundays launch was scheduled at dusk.
"We're launching the balloon near sunset so the body of the earth will act as a shield, or a barrier, between the balloon and most incoming meteoroids," says Dr. Tony Phillips, a scientist with NASA/Marshall. "The low flux of meteoroids will make this flight serve as a control experiment for the 1998 Leonids flight."
Above:The rate of meteor activity
is greatest near dawn because the earth's orbital motion is in
the direction of the dawn terminator. Earth scoops up meteoroids
on the dawn side of the planet and outruns them on the dusk side.
Partners in Discovery:
Members
of the NASA Star Trails
Society helped in both this and the 1998 Leonids balloon
experiment by counting the number of visual meteors in the sky.
Although the particles that cause visual meteors are generally
much larger than the ones likely to be captured in the xerogel
collectors, scientists would like to correlate the rate of visual
meteors with the micrometeoroid flux in the stratosphere. Star
Trails participants are making a valuable contribution to this
research. You, too, can participate in NASA research and science education activities by joining the Star Trails Society. Teachers and students, amateur and professional scientists, kids and grownups are all invited. Click for more information. |
"Even my wife seemed to enjoy watching this, and after half-an-hour or so, we had lots of curious neighbors stopping by to watch too. The cookout turned into a mini block party with ATV supplying the entertainment," Rayburn e-mailed. "We continued to watch a beautiful sunset from high above the earth and were amazed at just how much fun ATV is. In a word, I'm excited and had a ball."
NASA will launch two more weather balloons this year to capture meteoroid samples. In August, xerogel will be used to take samples of the Perseid meteoroid shower. This November, the Leonid shower is predicted to be an even better show than the much-hyped 1998 Leonid shower, and a balloon will be there to see if this prediction is correct. Both balloons will be equipped with a video camera just as in Sundays launch. Web Links
NASA/Ames Leonids MAC Workshop - April 12 - 15, 1999
Leonids' Particle Analyses from Stratospheric Balloon Collection on Xerogel Surfaces - conference abstract
Leonids Live! -site of the live webcast of the 1998 Leonids
Related Stories:
Leonid
Sample Return Update
-- Apr. 1, 1999. Scientists will describe initial results from
a program to catch meteoroids in flight at the NASA/Ames Leonids
Workshop April 12-15, 1999.
The
Ghost of Fireballs Past -- Dec. 22, 1998. RADAR echoes
from Leonid and Geminid meteors.
Bunches
& Bunches of Geminids -- Dec. 15, 1998. The Geminids
continued to intensify in 1998
The
1998 Leonids: A bust or a blast? -- Nov. 27, 1998. New
images of Leonid fireballs and their smokey remnants.
Leonids
Sample Return payload recovered! -- Nov. 23, 1998. Scientists
are scanning the "comet catcher" for signs of Leonid
meteoroids.
Early
birds catch the Leonids -- Nov. 19, 1998. The peak of
the Leonid meteor shower happened more than 14 hours earlier
than experts had predicted.
A
high-altitude look at the Leonids -- Nov. 18, 1998. NASA
science balloon catches video of 8 fireballs.
The
Leonid Sample Return Mission -- Nov. 16, 1998. NASA scientists
hope to capture a Leonid meteoroid and return it to Earth.
Great
Expectations: the 1998 Leonid meteor shower -- Nov. 10,
1998. The basics of what the Leonids are and what might happen
on November 17.
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For more information, please contact: Dr. John M. Horack , Director of Science Communications |
Author: Leslie
Mullen Curator: Bryan Walls NASA Official: John M. Horack |