Jump to content

File:NASA’s BARREL Mission Halley Station.jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (3,300 × 2,908 pixels, file size: 3.02 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Description

Liftoff! A balloon begins to rise over the brand new Halley VI Research Station, which had its grand opening in February 2013.


Credit: NASA

---

In Antarctica in January, 2013 – the summer at the South Pole – scientists launched 20 balloons up into the air to study an enduring mystery of space weather: when the giant radiation belts surrounding Earth lose material, where do the extra particles actually go? The mission is called BARREL (Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses) and it is led by physicist Robyn Millan of Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Millan provided photographs from the team’s time in Antarctica.

The team launched a balloon every day or two into the circumpolar winds that circulate around the pole. Each balloon floated for anywhere from 3 to 40 days, measuring X-rays produced by fast-moving electrons high up in the atmosphere. BARREL works hand in hand with another NASA mission called the Van Allen Probes, which travels through the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth. The belts wax and wane over time in response to incoming energy and material from the sun, sometimes intensifying the radiation through which satellites must travel. Scientists wish to understand this process better, and even provide forecasts of this space weather, in order to protect our spacecraft.

As the Van Allen Probes were observing what was happening in the belts, BARREL tracked electrons that precipitated out of the belts and hurtled down Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the poles. By comparing data, scientists will be able to track how what’s happening in the belts correlates to the loss of particles – information that can help us understand this mysterious, dynamic region that can impact spacecraft.

Having launched balloons in early 2013, the team is back at home building the next set of payloads. They will launch 20 more balloons in 2014.
Date
Source Flickr: NASA’s BARREL Mission Launches 20 Balloons
Author NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Permission
(Reusing this file)
This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 25 May 2013, 21:31 by 4ing. On that date, it was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the license indicated.
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

4 January 2013

image/jpeg

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current21:32, 25 May 2013Thumbnail for version as of 21:32, 25 May 20133,300 × 2,908 (3.02 MB)Flickr upload botUploaded from http://flickr.com/photo/24662369@N07/8759446618 using Flickr upload bot

The following 2 pages use this file:

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata