Aera Blog
This is the year2016 has a lot in store for the Aera Project. With our microbe retrieval chamber (MRC) design finalized, production is slated to begin in Mid-February. After three to four weeks of testing and experiments, the Aera Project will have four MRCs ready for launch.
We have two missions slated for Spring 2016, one in May and the other in June. Both will be equipped with our MRCs and two GoPros. Each MRC will test a pre-selected altitude triggered by an automatic barometer/GPS unit. Ideally, we will be testing altitudes up to 100,000 feet. At such a high altitude, with conditions that would kill almost all surface life, these atmospheric microbes will need to be extremely hardy, adapted to freezing conditions and extreme concentrations of UV light. As the Ozone layer is around 50,000 feet below them, they are constantly bombarded with UV-C light, an extremely dangerous form of ultraviolet. The missions will hopefully yield microbes for us to study and understand their characteristics. The goal is to unravel exactly how these microbes can live in such a harsh ecosystem -- bettering our understanding of microbiological evolution and the scope of where life can live. 2016 is going to be a packed year, full of new missions, research, and discoveries, and we can't wait!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
The Aera ProjectFrequent Updates regarding Aera Events Archives
February 2016
Categories |