In this episode Dr Helen Czerski chats to parabolic flight veteran Dr Jean Baptiste-Renard whose team are building a ‘particle database’ based on what light does when it passes through a plume of particles or dust. This sort of research, in differing types of gravity, can help us better understand, and detect particles in the air that have drastic effects on our day to day lives such as pollution and volcanic ash.

There is certain science that just can’t be done in Earth’s gravity and, short of living on the ISS, the only way to conduct these experiments is on a parabolic flight campaign. 

New episodes each Wednesday at 8:30pm and on demand.

With special thanks to the Neil Meville, Rosita Suensen and the great team at the European Space Agency and Anne-Clotilde Duchesne and the equally great team at Novespace for having us as part of the campaign.

Zero G flight footage shot by Melanie Cowan.

Produced and Directed by Trent Burton

If you’d like to directly support what we do at the Cosmic Shambles Network visit https://patreon.com/cosmicshambles

External footage of the Zero G plane courtesy of Novespace