About the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE):
- It is a first-of-its-kind NASA experimental attempt aimed at studying the interactions between terrestrial and space weather.
- It is planned under NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Programme. This mission will study the links between how waves in the lower layers of the atmosphere impact the upper atmosphere and, thus, space weather.
- It will be launched and mounted on the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS).
- From the vantage point, it will look down at the Earth and record the colourful light bands, commonly known as airglow.
- The new NASA mission will try to understand the combination of forces that drive the Space weather in the upper atmosphere.
- It will measure the airglow at mesopause (about 85 to 87 km above the Earth’s surface), where the atmospheric temperatures dip to minus 100 degrees Celsius.
- At this altitude, it is possible to capture the faint airglow in the infrared bandwidth, which appears to be the brightest, enabling easy detection.
- It will be able to resolve waves at finer horizontal scales than what satellites can usually see at those altitudes, which is part of what makes the mission unique.
- The health of the ionosphere, whose lower layers sit at the edge of space, is important for maintaining seamless communication.
What will NASA’s AWE do?
- It will perform focused mapping of the colourful airglows in the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Onboard AWE is an Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (ATMT), an instrument that will scan or map the mesopause (a region between the mesosphere and thermosphere).
- Using the four identical telescopes comprising an imaging radiometer, scientists hope to obtain the brightness of light at specific wavelengths.
- This information can then be converted into a temperature map, which could reveal the airglow movement and, ultimately, give clues on their role in the upper atmosphere and Space weather.
What is an airglow?
- It is a faint luminescence of Earth’s upper atmosphere that is caused by air molecules’ and atoms’ selective absorption of solar ultraviolet and X-radiation.
- Most of the airglow emanates from the region about 50 to 300 km above the surface of Earth, with the brightest area concentrated at altitudes around 97 km.
