NASA Captures Stunning Images of Gravity Waves From Hurricane Helene’s Fury

When Hurricane Helene deed the southeastern United States past month, it caused wide powerfulness outages and devastating flooding connected the ground. But arsenic revealed successful caller NOAA data, the superstorm besides generated shockwaves successful Earth’s atmosphere.

The Atmospheric Waves Experiment (or AWE) aboard the International Space Station captured images of Hurricane Helene’s gravity waves, showcasing some the instrument’s capabilities and the hurricane’s intensity.

Gravity waves are ripples successful the aerial caused galore of Earth’s natural—and often violent—phenomena. Everything from thunderstorms and tornadoes to tsunamis and volcanoes tin make atmospheric waves, and studying the atmosphere’s gravity waves tin assistance scientists find terrestrial weather’s effects connected abstraction weather, which tin disrupt instruments successful low-Earth orbit and communications beyond.

Hurricane Helene offered an perfect accidental for interrogating AWE’s quality to spot atmospheric gravity waves. The hurricane smashed into Florida’s Big Bend successful precocious September arsenic a Category 4 tempest with winds exceeding 140 miles per hr (225 kilometers per hour). Helene wiped retired powerfulness for millions of radical crossed the southeastern United States and devastated inland areas with flooding, particularly successful parts of Tennessee and occidental North Carolina. Satellite imagery released successful the contiguous aftermath of the tempest revealed the communities that mislaid powerfulness and the storm’s aggravated lightning from the air.

The recently released information shows that the hurricane generated gravity waves precocious successful the atmosphere, acold supra the tempest clouds. To beryllium perfectly clear, gravity waves are not the aforesaid arsenic gravitational waves, perturbations successful spacetime that are measured by interferometers and pulsar timing arrays. Gravitational waves bash walk done Earth (and everything connected it, including you and me), but they are acold subtler than ripples successful the ambiance and are generated by sources much, overmuch larger than hurricanes.

The waves are artificially colored successful the data—visualized below—red, yellow, and green, to bespeak differences successful radiance of infrared wavelengths produced by airglow successful Earth’s mesosphere, the furniture of the planet’s ambiance that stretches 31 to 53 miles (50 to 85 kms) supra its surface. The AWE views of gravity waves are immoderate of the archetypal publically released images from the instrument, which launched successful November past twelvemonth and is mounted connected the International Space Station. The images corroborate AWE’s quality to survey however hurricanes impact Earth’s atmosphere.

“Like rings of h2o spreading from a driblet successful a pond, circular waves from Helene are seen billowing westward from Florida’s northwest coast,” said Ludger Scherliess, AWE’s main researcher astatine Utah State University, successful a NASA release.

AWE information showing Hurricane Helene’s atmospheric waves supra the southeastern U.S. Image: Utah State University

Natural disasters nutrient devastating effects, galore of which are plain to see. But they besides nutrient immoderate effects which alert nether the radar. For example, the immense Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption of 2022 produced a benignant of aerial unit question that was theorized successful 1937 but not proven to beryllium until 2 years ago. Just past week, a squad of researchers recovered that the eruption was preceded by a previously undetected seismic wave which was detected astatine stations hundreds of miles away, a reminder that exigency preparedness systems tin inactive beryllium much acceptable for these cataclysmic events.

Even mean thunderstorms—that is, not conscionable the utmost upwind associated with hurricanes and volcanic eruptions—harbor secrets. Last month, a squad of scientists recovered that thunderstorms successful the tropics were emitting a newly identified benignant of gamma radiation, establishing a imaginable nexus betwixt glows and flashes associated with the storms.