Science Diary: Lightning – Balloons

music
Ambience: Filling balloon

“Okay, you ready to fill? Let me, let me go check the gauge” [BLASTING OF AIR]”

Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. Today we join New Mexico Tech Physicist Richard Sonnenfeld. He’s at the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research in New Mexico where he is studying lightning.

In order to learn how lightning flashes rearrange electrical charges in storm clouds, Richard Sonnenfeld and his students send tiny computers skyward, carried by weather balloons.

“What I really hope to do today is to fly our electric field meter into a storm. We’ve spent the last week getting ready, making sure all our sensors work. And we would be ready. We have a balloon partly inflated. And if the weather starts to look encouraging, we’ll finish up and we could be ready in two hours in a relaxed pace, one hour if we had to hurry. Weather balloons are quite impressive. They can easily get to eighty thousand feet. To the edge of space. But if you want to study storms you don’t really need to get beyond ten kilometers. Which is about six or seven miles. And in fact the further you let your package go, the further away it’s going to come down more or less. And so, we actually cut our packages down. We put what’s effectively the wire from a toaster into at the moment an orange juice container, with batteries, and have a simple timer circuit, which at the appropriate time will activate the wire and melt the balloon string.”

The package carrying Richard’s instrument will then drift down to earth by parachute. He and his team hope that their research will answer some fundamental questions about lightning. If you have a question about lightning, then visit Richard Sonnenfeld’s blog on pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation.

Science Diary: Lightning - Balloons

Weather balloons serve as transportation for Science Diarist Richard Sonnenfeld's instruments.
Air Date:08/28/2007
Scientist:
Transcript:

music
Ambience: Filling balloon

“Okay, you ready to fill? Let me, let me go check the gauge” [BLASTING OF AIR]”

Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. Today we join New Mexico Tech Physicist Richard Sonnenfeld. He’s at the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research in New Mexico where he is studying lightning.

In order to learn how lightning flashes rearrange electrical charges in storm clouds, Richard Sonnenfeld and his students send tiny computers skyward, carried by weather balloons.

“What I really hope to do today is to fly our electric field meter into a storm. We've spent the last week getting ready, making sure all our sensors work. And we would be ready. We have a balloon partly inflated. And if the weather starts to look encouraging, we'll finish up and we could be ready in two hours in a relaxed pace, one hour if we had to hurry. Weather balloons are quite impressive. They can easily get to eighty thousand feet. To the edge of space. But if you want to study storms you don't really need to get beyond ten kilometers. Which is about six or seven miles. And in fact the further you let your package go, the further away it's going to come down more or less. And so, we actually cut our packages down. We put what's effectively the wire from a toaster into at the moment an orange juice container, with batteries, and have a simple timer circuit, which at the appropriate time will activate the wire and melt the balloon string.”

The package carrying Richard’s instrument will then drift down to earth by parachute. He and his team hope that their research will answer some fundamental questions about lightning. If you have a question about lightning, then visit Richard Sonnenfeld’s blog on pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation.