Mar 26, 2021 07:22 PM
https://eos.org/articles/flying-saucers-...mesosphere
EXCERPT: Flying saucers might someday flit through Earth’s upper atmosphere, at altitudes above 50 kilometers where the mesosphere starts. With their diameters likely reaching just a few centimeters, the saucers aren’t large enough to cause much of a fuss. Instead, they’ll endow climate scientists with measurements of temperatures, pressures, wind speeds, and other parameters in the mesosphere, a poorly studied region of the atmosphere.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania used a phenomenon known as photophoresis—a fluid flow created by light—to levitate small, thin disks for up to about 30 seconds per flight. The aerial platforms were created and tested by the researchers in late 2019, and the results were reported in February in Science Advances.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Igor Bargatin, an associate professor and leader of the research team. “The concept of using photophoresis to make structures fly has been around a while—a bunch of patents were even published. But nothing was ever realized.”
[...] This part of the atmosphere is difficult to reach. The air is too thin to support balloons or aircraft but too thick for satellites to fly through, so it is studied primarily through remote sensing or through brief incursions by sounding rockets. ... Getting to the mesosphere won’t be easy, though. The disks might be delivered by a sounding rocket. And if they were launched into a polar summer, with uninterrupted sunlight, they might stay aloft for days or weeks—if scientists can find a way to keep them steady in mesospheric winds that can reach 100 kilometers per hour or higher. Eventually, similar technology might even be used to explore Mars... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: Flying saucers might someday flit through Earth’s upper atmosphere, at altitudes above 50 kilometers where the mesosphere starts. With their diameters likely reaching just a few centimeters, the saucers aren’t large enough to cause much of a fuss. Instead, they’ll endow climate scientists with measurements of temperatures, pressures, wind speeds, and other parameters in the mesosphere, a poorly studied region of the atmosphere.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania used a phenomenon known as photophoresis—a fluid flow created by light—to levitate small, thin disks for up to about 30 seconds per flight. The aerial platforms were created and tested by the researchers in late 2019, and the results were reported in February in Science Advances.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Igor Bargatin, an associate professor and leader of the research team. “The concept of using photophoresis to make structures fly has been around a while—a bunch of patents were even published. But nothing was ever realized.”
[...] This part of the atmosphere is difficult to reach. The air is too thin to support balloons or aircraft but too thick for satellites to fly through, so it is studied primarily through remote sensing or through brief incursions by sounding rockets. ... Getting to the mesosphere won’t be easy, though. The disks might be delivered by a sounding rocket. And if they were launched into a polar summer, with uninterrupted sunlight, they might stay aloft for days or weeks—if scientists can find a way to keep them steady in mesospheric winds that can reach 100 kilometers per hour or higher. Eventually, similar technology might even be used to explore Mars... (MORE - details)