Scientists At NASA Map Costa Rica Volcano Via Aircraft

NASA scientists hoping to improve their technological ability to monitor volcanoes decided to monitor one of the largest volcanoes in Costa Rica.

On Monday, NASA confirmed that its Earth science researchers examined Turrialba Volcano near San Jose, Costa Rica by flying a Dragon Eye unmanned aerial vehicle, otherwise known as a UAV, deep into the volcano's smoke plume over the volcano.

The test flight was all part of a study to improve the remote-sensing capability of satellites and computer models when it comes to monitoring volcanic activity. The study is known as "In Situ Validation and Calibration of Remotely Sensed Volcanic Emission Data and Models," which involved scientists conducting 10 flights between March 11-14 weeks ago to and from the volcano.

That includes satellite date research products such as maps of concentration and volcanic gas distribution; the tests were also geared towars improving computer models measuring how and where plumes of smoke from volcanoes will travel.

The aircraft, as described by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, weigh less than six pounds each with a wingspan of 3.75 feet, mounted with visible and infrared video cameras and are able to last inside a volcanic plume for up to an hour.

Each aircraft was loaded with sulfur dioxide and particle sensors and automatic atmosphere sampling bottles to test the levels of sulfur dioxide concentration, which were compared with samples taken from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER instrument, onboard the spacecraft known as Terra.

Test flights went as high as 12,500 feet above sea level, more than 2,000 feet above the Turrialba summit; computer models taken from the study will be examined by scientists in the hopes that they will learn how to more accurately predict global climate conditions and ease some of the environmental conditions that inhabitants of towns near volcanoes face, such as sulfur dioxide volcaninc smog.

Principal investigator David Pieri of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory noted the difficulty of the project, given the hazrds that volcanoes pose to aircraft.

"It is very difficult to gather data from within volcanic eruption columns and plumes because updraft wind speeds are very high and high ash concentrations can quickly destroy aircraft engines," Pieri said. "Such flight environments can be very dangerous to manned aircraft. Volcanic eruption plumes may stretch for miles from a summit vent, and detached ash clouds can drift hundreds to thousands of miles from an eruption site." 

Turrialba certainly has seen its share of activity. One of the largest volcanoes in Costa Rica, Turrialba has erupted with huge explosions at least five times during the past 3,500 years in prehistoric times. The last time Turrialba erupted was in 1866, but the volcano started showing increases in seismic and fumarolic activity in 2006. Large amounts of sulphur dioxide gas began to erupt from the volcano in January 2010.