NASAさんのインスタグラム写真 - (NASAInstagram)「I’m Katy Mersmann, another NASA Earth Science producer. I was in the field with Lauren for the FIREX-AQ mission. This wasn’t my first field campaign – I’ve flown with the DC-8 a few other times, but this campaign did come with a handful of firsts! One night, we got a last-minute invitation to follow the Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment (LARGE) into the field to camp overnight. This group works out of a large white van – think food truck – but instead of a kitchen, the inside is packed with instruments to measure air quality and particles in smoke. The science team camps out in valleys and waits for smoke to sink down overnight to measure its chemistry at the ground level. We had about an hour and a half to prepare for our camping adventure and were not prepared. We grabbed some nonperishable snacks and a change of clothes and headed out into the wilderness. Luckily, they had a spare tent to loan us, but unluckily, the temperature dropped way lower than we expected and without weather-appropriate sleeping bags, the tent was too cold, so the three communicators slept in our rental car. The night we were with the LARGE team, the smoke never settled into the valley the way forecasts predicted, so it stayed really clear. It was a little disappointing for the science, but it gave us an amazing view of the night sky, totally free of light pollution. The science team had better luck later in the week with some heavily smoky campsites, so they’ve been able to collect the data they needed. That’s the nature of field research – you never really know what might happen next! #nasa #firex #earth #nasaexpeditions」8月9日 23時34分