Looking up to the sky to find out what happens deep down in the #ocean !
The newly inaugurated OASIS project, operated by the German Aerospace Center and hosted at ESO's Paranal Observatory in #Chile, will monitor "airglow" in our atmosphere to better understand tsunamis. 1/3
Earthquakes create sound waves that travel upwards through the atmosphere. These waves perturb the so-called "airglow" –– light naturally emitted by certain molecules like hydroxyl (OH), visible in astronomical data.
By measuring changes in the spatial structure and the spectrum of airglow, researchers hope to be able to eventually provide early warnings for tsunamis. 2/3
Since airglow also affects astronomical observations, this experiment might also benefit the telescopes at Paranal. While we do have techniques to largely remove airglow from our data, monitoring airglow throughout the night could help us forecast it and optimise how we use telescope time. 3/3
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