Researchers using drones to better understand environmental phenomena

In the thick, dry grass of the Paso de Cortés mountain pass in Mexico, MIT's Earth Signals and Systems (ESS) group struggled to launch a small aircraft high up into the volcanic plume rising steadily from Popocatépetl. It was a windy day, and nothing was going right. Then the volcano began to erupt. "It sounded like a big engine going off, a loud boom," says Sai Ravela, principal research scientist in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheres, and Planetary Science. Their escort from CENAPRED, Mexico's federal disaster prevention agency, told them to drop everything and leave.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg