Two NASA-supported teams will launch a total of 80 scientific balloons in Iceland around today’s total solar eclipse, turning the country into a temporary laboratory for atmospheric research.
The teams will begin launches 18 hours before the eclipse and continue until eight hours afterward, using instruments to study changes in the planetary boundary layer — the lowest part of the atmosphere.
What’s the Story?
- Two teams in Iceland will launch 80 balloons around the eclipse.
- The campaign runs from 18 hours before totality until eight hours afterward.
- Researchers want to measure how sudden darkness changes the atmosphere’s lowest layer.
A temporary laboratory over Iceland
The work is part of the NASA-supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project. According to NASA, student teams from several U.S. universities are operating in Iceland and Spain to study how the brief loss of solar heating changes the atmosphere.
In Iceland, researchers will focus on the boundary layer, the portion of the atmosphere most directly influenced by the ground. Eclipse 2026 reports that launches will intensify around totality, with radiosondes sent up as often as every half hour during key measurement periods.
NASA says the Iceland teams will launch 80 balloons in total. The unusual timing of the eclipse — late in the Icelandic afternoon — gives researchers a chance to compare the eclipse-induced cooling with the atmosphere’s normal transition toward evening.
The balloon campaign complements another NASA project operating from Iceland. Iceland Review has already reported that a WB-57 research aircraft will observe the eclipse above the clouds.
Readers planning to watch from the ground should still follow eclipse eye-safety guidance.
Original source: NASA
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