• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

ReZone

All Review over the World

  • Submit
  • Disclaimers
  • About
  • DMCA
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact

You are here: Home / NASA scientists just flew through a fire cloud

NASA scientists just flew through a fire cloud

August 13, 2019 by

In these days of extreme wildfires across the globe, you may have witnessed the fire cloud phenomenon for yourself. These clouds occur when heat and moisture head upward from the fire and feed thunderstorms. NASA had the rare opportunity to fly a DC-8 right through one on Aug. 8.

NASA’s plane is a flying laboratory stocked with data-collecting sensors. It carried a group of atmospheric scientists through a fire cloud, also known as a cumulonimbus flammagenitus or pyrocumulonimbus, in Washington state. 

The visuals were wild. One image shows the sun glowing orange thanks to particles in the air. Another shows the puffy white cloud sitting on top of the gray smoke from the lightning-caused Williams Flats fire.

The flight was part of a joint NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration project called Firex-AQ (Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality). 

“Scientists are studying the composition and chemistry of smoke to better understand its impact on air quality and climate,” NASA’s Earth Observatory said on Tuesday.

The researchers are interested in how clouds like this push smoke into the upper stratosphere, where it can spread and linger for long periods of time.

David Peterson, lead forecaster for Firex-AQ, described the flight as the most detailed sampling of a pyrocumulonimbus in history.  

NASA and the United States Geological Survey’s Landsat 8 satellite also witnessed the fire from orbit.

The Williams Flats fire is still burning and has consumed an estimated 45,000 acres. “Steep slopes, limited access and primitive roads conditions are hampering containment efforts,” the National Wildfire Coordinating Group reported in an incident overview.

Extreme wildfire seasons are happening more often. “The total area burned by wildfires in the United States in a single year has exceeded 8 million acres only eight times since 1960 — all have occurred since 2004,” NASA and NOAA said. 

We need all the data we can get as we deal with the air-quality impacts from these fiery disasters.

Fury from afar: NASA sees violent volcanoes from space

15 Photos


  • NASA finds biofuels make air travel 70 percent greener
  • NASA discovers one new Earth-like planet in a star system just 73 light years away along with two mini-Neptunes
  • NASA to test Toyota electronics in safety probe
  • Would you fly in a 1,100MPH jet with NO front window? Pilots controlling NASA's 'silent' supersonic plane dubbed the ‘son of concord’ will use cameras and a 4K TV screen to navigate the skies
  • Nasa Hataoka leads LPGA Tour event in Michigan
  • Forensic scientist reveals the horrifying moment she crawled under chapel floorboards next to a woman's mutilated body in bid to catch one of the UK's worst serial killers
  • How a single black cloud helped Padraig Harrington to Open Championship victory at Carnoustie in 2007
  • Hickman provides silver lining amid dark cloud over Dundrod
  • Ulster GP results: Hickman provides silver lining amid dark cloud over Dundrod
  • Injury woes cast cloud over Ulster hopes for the future

Filed Under: Sci-Tech cloud, nasa, sci-tech, scientist at nasa, clouds nasa, ethiopian scientists in nasa, what plane just flew over my house, just under the clouds

Primary Sidebar

RSS Recent Stories

  • Lenovo’s ThinkVision M14, Best Portable Monitor, Drops to $193
  • Amazon slashes prices on Jackery and Enkeeo portable power stations
  • Canon vs. Sony: Which camera brand belongs in your bag?
  • NASA wants to send an armada of hot air balloons to study Venus
  • The best smartphone stocking stuffers for 2019
Copyright © 2019 ReZone. Power by Wordpress.