The first Israeli astronaut will photograph the dust storms in 2002, using special equipment
Alex Doron, Maariv
https://www.hayadan.org.il/ramon250301.html
In preparation for the space operation and the flight of the first Israeli astronaut, NASA and the University of Tel Aviv prepared a special note to look into the heart of the dust storm from the Sahara
If there is no further change in the schedule - which has already undergone several changes for technical and other reasons - the flight of the first Israeli astronaut in space, Air Force Col. Ilan Ramon, will take place in April 2002. He will be on the space shuttle "Columbia", on flight no. STS107 and during it will perform a first experiment of its kind to measure the emerging desert dust over the Mediterranean Sea. The encryption experiment: Operation .MEIDEX
Ramon will also photograph the phenomenon of the "sprites" - electrical discharges, flashes of red light in motion, reaching distances of 90-35 km. The "sprites" appear at the "peaks" of lightning storms. So far this electromagnetic phenomenon has no explanation. It was first discovered only 11 years ago and scientists do not even have answers to quite basic questions: how it is formed and what is its exact life time.
Prof. Zeev Levin from the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University, who will conduct the research in space (together with Prof. Yehoyachin Yosef and Prof. Yori Meckler, Dr. Adam Dvir and Dr. Yoav Yair), said that the huge dust storms that will be studied originate from In the Sahara desert - and every such storm also has an effect on the entire weather in the world. One storm is capable of covering all of Europe. The length of the dust plume rising from the Sahara, in a "fairly average storm", may reach up to 600 km.
More than 55 percent of the tiny particles, the aerosols, that make up the air and are regularly found in the Earth's lower atmosphere, are actually suspended dust particles. Their proportion is greater than that of the particles originating from industrial emissions.
In the autumn months, the frequency of dust storms is greater in the west of the Mediterranean and in the spring in the east (which is why at this time of the year, we expect a lot of haze in our region).
The dust affects the amount of rain in different parts of the world. Also the size of the particles. But the researchers claim that the particles also contribute to the warming of the earth, and if it is possible to "control" them in the future, it may be possible to bring about a relative cooling of the atmosphere and stop its warming, due to the increase of "greenhouse gases".
The main experiment that Col. Ramon will perform aboard "Columbia" will focus on tracking the movement of aerosols from the Sahara desert towards the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Today, the aerosols are monitored using sensors on two NASA research satellites. Ramon will photograph from space, during his 16 days on the shuttle, the dust storms with special cameras at two wavelengths - thus providing scientists with a different angle of view of the phenomenon.
The ferry will pass over the Mediterranean Sea 3-2 times a day, during daylight hours. On the exact location of the dust clouds, Ramon will receive a report from observation networks, a mathematical model for forecasting storms developed at Tel Aviv University and informed by NASA research satellites. All data will be streamed to the "Goddard" space center in the state of Maryland and from there to the shuttle. All the photographs taken by Ramon will be recorded.
At the same time as its activity in space, a light aircraft, equipped with additional measurement and photography systems, will also operate near the Sicily area during a dust storm. The plane will even try to penetrate the "eye of the storm" - to obtain data on the properties and concentrations of the particles, and collect their samples.
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