In the high desert of Nevada, Elizabeth Silber watched NASA's Sample Return Capsule from OSIRIS-REx descend into Earth's atmosphere on Sunday, but unlike most scientists, she wasn't there for the asteroid rocks.
Silber, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, is working with researchers from Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, TDA Research Inc.
"Because the capsule was traveling faster than the speed of sound, it generated a shockwave. As the shockwave propagated away from the capsule, it turned into infrasound waves that could be detected." Silber said the group had an unprecedented number of sensors recording data, including 45 single sensors, one large rectangular array with 200 sensors, and three arrays composed of four sensors in a triangle formation. At first, the team checked to see how many sensors detected the signal. Back home in the lab, Silber and her colleagues will conduct a more extensive study.
"Moreover, we will study how strong acoustic waves propagate, test how well our instruments can capture signals and study the effects of the atmosphere on infrasound waves," Silber said."All this will enhance our knowledge and ability to use infrasound to detect meteoroids and artificial objects with infrasound."Atmosphere
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