Mika Hunts for Easter Eggs in the Arctic
Mika is currently in Spitsbergen. That’s an island in the Arctic. He’s helping researchers with their work. Today, Mika finally got to go on another exciting research flight. And guess what he found there? Easter eggs!
The first egg was barely hidden. Mika found it on his way to the research aircraft POLAR 5. Before heading to the plane, everyone puts on a bright orange vest. This makes everyone highly visible—even when the weather isn’t so good. That’s very important when working at the airport. Mika picked up the egg and looked out the window at POLAR 5 with joy.
Then it was time to go. Mika boarded POLAR 5 with the others. Everyone got ready—the researchers turned on their instruments, and the pilot and co-pilot prepared for the flight. As soon as everyone was ready, they buckled up, and off they went!
After takeoff, once the plane was high up in the sky, everyone was free to move around again. Mika sat by the window and watched the clouds from above. Sometimes they look like wool or cotton candy. But sometimes they also line up in long trails. Then they look like little sheep walking along a road. People actually call them “cloud streets.” Mika could watch them for hours.
But then Mika remembered that he was on an Easter egg hunt. He looked around the plane. The next egg was a little harder to find. But Mika found it anyway. It was on a strange shelf. In the compartment next to the egg lay an elongated measuring instrument. Mika asked what it was. He was told that it was a very special measuring instrument. It is called ‘dropsonde’. As the name suggest, it is indeed a measuring instrument that is dropped. Specifically, from the airplane.
There’s a small hole in the bottom of the plane. It’s just big enough for the dropsonde to fit through. At certain points, the dropsonde is then dropped out of the plane through the hole. As it falls, it measures the temperature, how strong the wind is blowing, and how humid the air is as it passes through. This tells us what the air is like at different altitudes.
Mika found this so exciting that he wanted to throw a few dropsonde out of the plane himself. Mika even brought you a map. There you can see where the POLAR 5 flew and where Mika, along with the researchers, threw a dropsonde out of the plane.
After Mika had worked hard helping to drop the dropsondes, he looked around to see what else there was to do. All the researchers are very busy from takeoff to landing. Mika looks at what’s on all the screens in the plane. On one, he found pictures of all the clouds and sea ice they’d flown over. Mika didn’t find any more eggs there, but he did find a new friend.
A small, cuddly polar bear was sitting in front of the screen, looking at the ice floes. Mika snuggled up next to him and was happy to have found someone with whom he could discuss all the research questions and share his Easter eggs—because research is teamwork!
Lass dir den Beitrag vorlesen
Text & Illustration: Patrizia Schoch; Translation: Fathima Cherichi Purayil