NASA satellite looked into the eye of a typhoon

In adventure literature, there is often a mention of the “eye of the storm”, where it is quiet and calm, despite the fact that the elements are raging around. “Eye”, in fact, is not a fiction of writers, but a real phenomenon that has long been of interest to scientists. It is clear that to get into the eye of a typhoon is a non-trivial task, but modern technology avoids the need to risk your life.

NASA's satellite, called CloudSat, conducted a detailed study of typhoon Dolphin, which received category 4. The satellite was able to study the structure of the typhoon, including the eye itself. CloudSat, which can be called an orbital observatory, sends pulses of radiation of a certain frequency through the atmosphere, then capturing the reflected radiation.



CloudSat has a twinning lab, RapidScat, which is used to map the movement of air masses. As for CloudSat, this station determines the amount of water or ice in the clouds by the strength of the reflected signal.



In the image obtained after processing by a team of specialists, we see a typhoon in a section where the smallest details of this atmospheric formation are visible. It also has infrared images superimposed by another satellite, the Japanese MTSTAT.

This entire satellite system now helps determine the likelihood of hurricanes in various regions of the planet, as well as assess the movement of atmospheric layers, plus to study emerging phenomena, including the most powerful hurricanes. Now scientists are conducting an active study of tropical hurricanes, all the results of the study are entered into a single database that will serve for further work in this area. Already, scientists can predict the likelihood of a hurricane in a particular region, and each new study improves the accuracy of such forecasts.