Two solar eclipses swept the United States in October 2023 and April 2024, inspiring millions of people to look at the sky and think of astronomy, perhaps for the first time. For assistant professor Juie Shetyye and his research team, the Eclipses presented a unique opportunity to study a phenomenon called atmospheric gravity waves, or Agws, and to engage with local communities on science behind their research.
“Atmospheric gravity waves are essentially disturbances in the earth’s atmosphere, and you see them all the time in Las Cruces as undulations in the clouds,” said Oana Vesa, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Stanford and member of the Shetyye team. “They are a very large component in our global climate activity and our weather models.”
Shetyye gathered a varied group of people – from art to astronomy and economics to engineering – to join its two teams, funded by the National Eclipse Ballooning Project and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium (NMSGC).
In addition to Vesa, the first doctorate of Shetyye. student, Shayan Abotalebi And Andrew Denny, engineers from the NMSU physical science laboratory, lent their team skills. Aiden Brealey-Rood, a major in junior engineering of the NMSU, worked in close collaboration with Denny.
“I played a role in the real balloon launches where we fill the balloons, we discovered the amount of helium we needed, and we would fill it and then attach a radiosonde.
The radiosonds are attached to the balloon and at different levels of the atmosphere, they transmit measures by radio.
The interpretation of the data of these waves of atmospheric severity is important for making precise weather forecasts and advising pilots on potential turbulence in unexpected areas.
To detect them, the Shetyye team launched the balloons equipped with radiosonds at regular intervals before, during and after the eclipses. As eclipses progressed, these instruments collected data on the changing conditions of the atmosphere, such as temperature, humidity and wind direction. “THE The first part was to see them physically, that they are there. The second part was to see them in our data sets, “said Shetyye.
Subomi Oyewole, Ph.D. of nmsu astronomy. The student, and Christine Houser, undergraduate student NMSU studying information and communication technologies, played a decisive role in the analysis of the data of the radiosonds.
During the total solar eclipse of April 2024, Huser helped check the data as it was downloaded to make sure it was clean. This gave Shetyye a lot of work to do during the twelve hours of road in Granbury, Texas. “We knew we had detected AGS before reaching Las Cruces because we could make the initial plots of these detections very quickly,” said Shetyye.
AGS not only appeared in the data, but they were visible in the photos. During the annular solar eclipse of October, a clear sky gave way to the clouds with a ripple reason indicating the AGW that the team was there to find. “We ended up doing crowdsourcing a lot of photos of the community also to help our investigation,” said Vesa.
The positive link between the local community and the astronomy that Shetyye helped to cultivate started long before real eclipses. If there had not been for the awareness efforts of Shetyye, there may not have been a library of photos of the community. Eviving leaflets, advertising, appearing in radio programs and receiving support from the dedicated staff of the New Mexico Artsia Science Center led to a great public participation for the annular solar eclipse. Curious members of the community have come together to watch the eclipse, learn a little science and even help with balloon launches.
Judy Evelyn Silva, an administrator of the NMSU, obtaining a master’s degree in economics, was impressed by the accent put by Shetyye on community awareness as well as research.
“For me, the most interesting thing was awareness because it is the objective of putting diversity in the project,” said Silva. “Personally, I am three children, so it was cool to tell children what they can be. I mean that many of them do not know what they want to study, but we could show how it can be applied to engineering with Shayan and Andrew as clear examples.”
“The day of launch in the artsia, they were able to bring many families and children there to come and make the launch,” said Abotalebi. “We were able to bring children to launch some of the balloons and I think it’s a bit exciting for them to be able to interact with that and perhaps lead them to a STEM path.”
Paulo Oemig, director of NMSCG, has a similar hope. Consulted at the recruitment of minority students in STEM, he and his administrative team joined Shetyye and the staff of the Artsia Science Center for the annular eclipse in October 2023.
Marco Martinez, an NMSU student specializing in mathematics, described the project as an incredible opportunity to add variety to his studies. “”I had the opportunity to learn to use the computers and sensors that we send to the sky and how to do the ball and share this with the others and know the steps we needed to launch the balloons. »»
“The second launch of Eclipse was a success because of all the hard work that Marco and Aiden put there, what they learned from the first eclipse with Andrew and Shyan led to their work in the second eclipse,” said Sheyte.
Kayla Blundell, an NMSU art student, joined the team to help guide her creative process in carrying out a sculpture to commemorate research on the solar eclipse, which is now exposed to the solar observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. See his sculpture.
Huser joined creativity by designing a logo for the project. “Christine did the logos, and we printed them. We all had the Eclipse t-shirts,” said Shetyye.
Shetyye and the work of his teams led to two publications examined by peers in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society: “Reveals the dynamics of atmospheric gravity waves: prospects for an annular solar eclipse event in Artesia Science Center, nm” And “Characterization of atmospheric gravity waves observed during a total solar eclipse in Granbury, Texas,. “”
“The publication of these articles gives us this reference. We have reported an analysis of the speed of the waves,” said Shetyye. “These are the models we see, and now we are examining the effects of these models on the local environment.”
Two other papers still come from Shetyye and his team.
Cutline: Juie Shetyye and her AGW research team at Artesia Science Center, New Mexico, for the annular solar eclipse of October 2023. (Courtesy photo)
Cutline: the members of the research group working with a ball during the annular solar eclipse of October 2023. (Courtesy photo)
Cup: A cloud with a ripple pattern compatible with atmospheric gravity waves is visible in the sky during the annular solar eclipse of October 2023. (Courtesy photo)
Cutline: A member of the research team helps a group of children to launch a ball in Granbury, Texas, during the total solar eclipse of April 2024. Each ball was brought a radiosonde; A payload with instruments that have measured the changes in the direction of the wind, temperature, humidity, pressure and sunlight throughout the eclipse. (Photo of courtesy)