NASA's Super Soaker Mission

As I write, the rain outside my window is coming down in buckets, and I’m staring into the distance, dreaming of summer. We’ll be able to sit in the front yard, eating ice cream, and take Zoom calls outside without freezing to death. The only threat of getting wet won’t be torrential downpour, but rather, getting hit by one of the neighbors’ Super Soaker water gun fights.

Just like the neighbors’ kids, NASA has their own super-soaking mission too. But their objective is to understand how noctilucent, or night-shining clouds form. So they attempted to make one of their own. Noctilucent clouds, as shown in the photo, are cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere made of ice crystals that can be seen during astronomical twilight--a great band name (here). These clouds make up some incredible, otherworldly images. To understand how these come about, NASA launched a rocket carrying water into the atmosphere, which exploded as it reached 85 km above the ground. Researchers found that the temperature inside the vapor plume was about 25 degrees Celsius cooler than the surrounding air (results here). While cooling the atmosphere isn’t exactly the key to all our problems with climate change, better understanding these clouds can give us a clue about the impact of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. And also, make for some really pretty pictures. (More info here)

Natalie Wang is currently working on her undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University as a Hodson Trust Scholar. Her research interests are in DNA damage and repair, as well as post-operative delirium in older patients. Natalie started volunteering with WIS PDX in 2019 as a member of the outreach and education team, and is now the producer and a co-host of WIS's podcast, WISterhood. When not listening to music or doom-scrolling on Twitter, she can be found checking closets for Narnia.