![]() Now, at the age of 79, Kittinger, who retired as a colonel, is being recognized anew for his achievements. He also became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon in 1984. Kittinger went on to fly almost 500 combat missions in Vietnam before being shot down in 1972 and held for 11 months as a prisoner of war. It was the third and final leap in Project Excelsior, whose aim was to test new equipment designed to help pilots, or even astronauts, survive ejections at high altitudes. state of New Mexico.Īlmost 50 years later, Kittinger still holds the world record for the highest-ever parachute jump and the longest free fall - 4 minutes, 36 seconds. And then, believe it or not, he jumped, landing in the desert in the southwestern U.S. Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger stepped into a tiny gondola attached to a massive, helium-filled balloon and ascended to the edge of space - more than 31 kilometers above the Earth. Story by Lindsey Doermann.On August 16, 1960, U.S. NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. ![]() As new information becomes available, the team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal. NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Disasters program area has been activated in support of the fires in Greece, responding to a request from the World Central Kitchen for data and imagery of the fires’ location and impacts to inform their humanitarian efforts in setting up kitchens for those affected. The area burned by fires is more than double the average for this point in the year. Experts think the current heat wave is set to become Greece’s longest on record, with temperatures exceeding 40☌ (104☏) for days on end in late July. The intense fire season of 2021 came on the heels of extreme heat, and the number of fires and area burned in Greece were far above average. In addition to the many people impacted on Rhodes, upwards of 2,500 people on Corfu were evacuated, and residents of villages in southern Evia found themselves in harm’s way as high winds fanned the flames.įires are not unusual in Greece, but heat-stoked fire weather is projected to become more common as the planet warms. Many sought refuge in makeshift shelters such as schools, gymnasiums, and docked ships, while some in seaside villages boarded coast guard vessels to move to safety.Īs of July 24, there were 82 fires burning across Greece, with 64 of those starting on July 23. Orland is a research associate at Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and McCabe is a post-doctoral associate at the University of Maryland, College Park.Īn estimated 19,000 people evacuated from areas threatened by the blazes, according to news reports. Between July 21 and July 23, it underwent a six-fold increase in size, from approximately 25 to 150 square kilometers (10 to 60 square miles), according to their analysis. Calculating the perimeter of actively burning areas every 12 hours, Eli Orland and Tess McCabe observed how the Rhodes fire spread relatively slowly at first, then picked up rapidly. ![]() NASA-affiliated scientists were able to track the fires’ spread with the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite. This image captures the start of what turned into an intense period of wildfire. Thick smoke can be seen drifting westward toward the Aegean Sea. The image is natural color, with the infrared signature from actively burning fires overlaid in red. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this image of fire activity on Rhodes on July 19. Blazes also ignited on the mainland and the islands of Corfu and Evia. A prolonged stretch of extreme heat contributed to high fire risk across much of the country. ![]() Wildfires raging across the Greek island of Rhodes sent tens of thousands of locals and tourists scrambling for safety in late July 2023. ![]()
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