Up, up, and … back down! On Jan. 27, scientists on an island in Indonesia launched a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde – an instrument that measures ozone throughout the layers of Earth’s atmosphere.
Up, up, and … back down! On Jan. 27, scientists on an island in Indonesia launched a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde – an instrument that measures ozone throughout the layers of Earth’s atmosphere. Ozonesondes collect valuable data that scientists use to understand Earth’s atmosphere, improve air quality predictions, and validate satellite measurements.
The Indonesian space agency, LAPAN, and NASA signed an agreement in November 2020 to resume ozonesonde launches from the Watukosek Observatory on the island of Java, Indonesia. NASA’s SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional OZonesondes) project supplies the ozonesondes and launches them in collaboration with LAPAN scientists on Java. This was the first ozonesonde launch at the site since 2013, and the scientists were eager to see how atmospheric ozone above that area may have changed since then.
About 90% of atmospheric ozone is in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere which extends from about 10 to 31 miles high near the tropics. The remaining 10% is in the layer nearest Earth’s surface, the troposphere. Stratospheric ozone protects Earth from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. However, ozone in the troposphere is an air pollutant.
Read more at: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
