Lost and Found?
Mar 20, 2024
A sonar scan of an object at the bottom of the ocean might be an image of Amelia Earhart’s airplane.
Amelia Earhart’s airplane disappeared during her around-the-world flight attempt in 1937. This past January, Deep Sea Vision (DSV), a South Carolina-based marine robotics company, announced a discovery that might help solve the decades-long mystery: a sonar scan of an object 16,000 feet below the ocean’s surface that vaguely resembles an aircraft, raising hopes it might be Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra.
Using deep-water sonar, the marine robotics company Deep Sea Vision has located an object they believe could be Earhart’s airplane.
Although DSV hasn’t disclosed the precise location of their find and confirmed its identity, Dorothy Cochrane—a curator at the National Air and Space Museum who oversees the collection of general aviation aircraft—says the company is going about their search in the right way. “When she disappeared, Amelia Earhart was en route to and in the vicinity of Howland Island because it was the next refueling stop of her world flight attempt,” says Cochrane. “DSV carefully studied Earhart’s approach to Howland and relevant factors to determine its own initial search area.”
Still, experts on Earhart’s disappearance caution that this new discovery is far from conclusive. “Yes, the sonar target appears to have a fuselage, wings, and a tail, but it appears to have swept wings; the relative dimensions do not match the Electra; and there is a lack of engine nacelles,” says a press statement from Nauticos, LLC, an ocean exploration company that has been searching for Earhart’s airplane for 20 years. “Those characteristics are not consistent with a Lockheed Electra 10-E.”
Cochrane says the Smithsonian stands ready to monitor any efforts by DSV to resume their search and salvage. For now, the mystery continues and our fascination with Earhart endures.
“Such a stunning and unresolved disappearance certainly keeps Earhart’s name in the public realm,” says Cochrane. “But the degree to which it does is due to who she was and that she remains a person of consequence in aviation, a compelling force for women’s roles in society, and an enduring icon of popular culture.”
The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona—which is about 10 million times less dense than the sun’s surface—becomes briefly visible during a total solar eclipse, such as the one that occurred in 2017.
Under the Moon’s Shadow
The National Air and Space Museum is your front row seat for the next eclipse.
A total solar eclipse will cross North America on April 8, with totality starting in Mexico, arcing from Texas to Maine, and then ending in Canada. When the moon completely blocks the sun, day will turn into night and the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, will become briefly visible. If viewers are lucky, they might even see a coronal mass ejection—a large eruption of solar material—during totality. (Please remember, except during the brief period of totality, it is not safe to look directly at the sun without specialized eye protection. See the link for safety precautions in “More Resources.”)
The celestial event is being billed by astronomers as a sequel to 2017’s “Great American Eclipse,” except this time around it will have an even larger audience. That’s because the moon’s distance from Earth varies as it orbits our planet. The moon will be closer to Earth during the 2024 eclipse than it was in 2017, which means the shadow it casts on our planet will be much wider and cover more ground. The eclipse path of this year’s event will also pass over more cities and densely populated areas than the path taken by 2017’s eclipse.
Even those who won’t be directly under the moon’s shadow will still be able to witness the rare event. “The whole eclipse takes several hours from start to finish,” says Shauna Edson, an astronomy educator at the National Air and Space Museum. “Totality is the few minutes in the middle that everyone talks the most about. But pretty much all of North America will be able to see at least some part of the sun covered by the moon on that day (a partial eclipse), and it’s worth checking out no matter where you are.”
To mark the occasion, the National Air and Space Museum will be hosting the Solar Eclipse Festival on the National Mall on Monday, April 8, from noon to 4 pm. While not in the path of totality, Washington, D.C. will experience a partial eclipse from 2:04 pm to 4:32 pm, with maximum eclipse at 3:20 pm when 89 percent of the sun will be covered. Event attendees will be able to visit activity stations set up by the Museum, NASA, and NOAA to learn about the sun and look safely through solar telescopes. The next total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States won’t be until August 23, 2044.
More resources—including how to safely view the sun, hands-on activities explaining the science of eclipses, and eclipse-viewing events happening at Smithsonian Affiliates across the country—can be found at airandspace.si.edu/eclipse.
NASA’s X-59 sits on the ramp at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, shortly after completion of its red, white, and “sonic blue” paint job. An official rollout ceremony was held on January 12.
The Quest for a Quieter Sonic Boom
NASA and Lockheed Martin unveiled the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a rollout ceremony on January 12. The X-59 is at the center of NASA’s Quesst mission, which focuses on providing data to help regulators reconsider rules that prohibit commercial supersonic flight over land. The distinctive long nose of the X-59, which makes up almost a third of the aircraft’s length, will be essential in shaping shock waves during supersonic flight, resulting in quiet sonic thumps instead of loud sonic booms. Next up, the X-59 team will conduct a series of ground tests to prepare for the aircraft’s first flight later this year.
Photographer Jim Preston finds the majesty of an early morning balloon launch in Albuquerque.
This article is from the Spring 2024 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.
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