Starship Enterprise Visits Earth’s Stratosphere

The Starship Enterprise has been launched into Earth’s stratosphere.

Well, a version of the Enterprise was sent there.

“Earth to Sky Calculus is group of kids doing cutting-edge science in a little-explored realm 100,000 feet above our heads: the stratosphere. About once a week, they send their experiments aloft using helium balloons to search for new life forms in the stratosphere and to monitor the effects of cosmic radiation on Earth’s atmosphere. Their efforts are 100% crowdfunded. Small business, non-profits, and small businesses “own” this research and are responsible for its advance.”

Hopefully Captain Kirk was wearing his jacket during that flight.

From Space Weather Archive, September 28, 2018:

The sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age. Sunspots have been absent for most of 2018, and the sun’s ultraviolet output has sharply dropped. New research shows that Earth’s upper atmosphere is responding.

“We see a cooling trend,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”

These results come from the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. . . “The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,” explains Mlynczak, who is the associate principal investigator for SABER.