Hurricane Helene’s landfall produced atmospheric waves seen 55 miles above Earth
NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) is mounted to the outside of the International Space Station, measuring how weather on Earth can impact objects in space, including GPS and communication satellites.
Hurricane Helene makes landfall between Tampa and Tallahassee
Hurricane Helene made landfall southeast of Tallahassee, Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday evening.
When Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida with 140-mph winds, the impacts on the ground were deadly, and that power reverberated up into Earth’s atmosphere, creating ripples seen by a NASA instrument more than 55 miles above.
Launched in November 2023 on SpaceX's 29th resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS), the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) instrument is perched on the outside of the orbiting laboratory, where it watches for airglow, or bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere.
The AWE instrument, built by Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory, looks for atmospheric gravity waves caused by weather on Earth, including severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes. NASA said this data can help scientists understand how terrestrial weather affects space weather.
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NASA released some of the first public images from AWE showing gravity waves created by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26 when the storm made landfall as a catastrophic Category 4 storm in Florida’s Big Bend region.
See it: Atmospheric waves created by Hurricane Helene's landfall in Florida
A NASA graphic uses data from the Atmospheric Waves Experiment, or AWE, on the International Space Station to show the swells in the atmosphere created by Hurricane Helene's September landfall in Florida.
According to NASA, the graphic above uses red, yellow and blue to show the changes in brightness or radiance in the wavelength of infrared light produced by airflow in Earth’s atmosphere. The redder the color, the more intense the waves from Helene could be seen in Earth’s upper atmosphere, where the ISS orbits more than 200 miles above the ground.
"Like rings of water spreading from a drop in a pond, circular waves from Helene are seen billowing westward from Florida’s northwest coast," said AWE principal investigator Ludger Scherliess, with Utah State University.
NASA said AWE is the first mission to study how terrestrial and space weather may affect satellite communications and tracking in orbit.