Earth hurricanes and tornadoes generate invisible waves, which rise through the atmosphere and reach the Earth's orbit. NASA confirmed this with an instrument aboard the International Space Station. Mission completed 21 May 2026 year, after more than two years of observation.
AWE tool (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) studied atmospheric gravity waves. These are gigantic fluctuations in the atmosphere, which arise, when strong winds blow around high mountains or when catastrophic weather events occur, such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, hurricane. AWE was installed on the outer surface of the ISS in November 2023 year. For 30 months of work, he took four infrared pictures per second and in total accumulated more than 80 millions of night images.
Among the recorded events is an outbreak of tornadoes in the central part of the United States in May 2024 year and the impact of Hurricane Helene on the coast of Florida in September 2024. Observations have shown, that atmospheric gravity waves affect the plasma density in the upper atmosphere. Changes in this density disrupt the transmission of radio signals between satellites and ground stations, as well as between the satellites themselves, and can reduce the accuracy of navigation and communication systems.
The work of AWE was stopped for the integration of CLARREO Pathfinder, a new generation instrument, which measures the level of sunlight reflected from the Earth and the Moon 5-10 times more accurately. The ISS's robotic arm will soon remove the AWE from its mount.
Source: https://science.nasa.gov