Antarctica sets low temperature record of -135.8 degrees

FILE: In this image provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, sastrugi stick out from the snow surface in this photo near Plateau Station in East Antarctica. A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded in East Antarctica. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.NSIDC/AP

WASHINGTON –  Feeling chilly? Here's cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data says set a record for "soul-crushing" cold.

Try 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero; that's 93.2 degrees below zero Celsius, which sounds only slightly toastier. Better yet, don't try it. That's so cold scientists say it hurts to breathe.

A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.

The old record had been -128.6 degrees, which is -89.2 degrees Celsius.

Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the new record is "50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota."

"It's more like you'd see on Mars on a nice summer day in the poles," Scambos said, from the American Geophysical Union scientific meeting in San Francisco Monday, where he announced the data. "I'm confident that these pockets are the coldest places on Earth."

However, it won't be in the Guinness Book of World Records because these were satellite measured, not from thermometers, Scambos said.

"Thank God, I don't know how exactly it feels," Scambos said. But he said scientists do routinely make naked 100 degree below zero dashes outside in the South Pole, so people can survive that temperature for about three minutes.

Most of the time researchers need to breathe through a snorkel that brings air into the coat through a sleeve and warms it up "so you don't inhale by accident" the cold air, Scambos said.

On Monday, the coldest U.S. temperature was a relatively balmy 27 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Yellowstone, Wyo., said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private firm Weather Underground.

"If you want soul-crushing cold, you really have to go overseas," Scambos said in a phone interview. "It's just a whole other level of cold because on that cold plateau, conditions are perfect."

Scambos said the air is dry, the ground chilly, the skies cloudless and cold air swoops down off a dome and gets trapped in a chilly lower spot "hugging the surface and sliding around."

Just because one spot on Earth has set records for cold that has little to do with global warming because it is one spot in one place, said Waleed Abdalati, an ice scientist at the University of Colorado and NASA's former chief scientist. Both Abdalati, who wasn't part of the measurement team, and Scambos said this is likely an unusual random reading in a place that hasn't been measured much before and could have been colder or hotter in the past and we wouldn't know.

"It does speak to the range of conditions on this Earth, some of which we haven't been able to observe," Abdalati said.

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Boeing demonstrator breaks hypersonic flight record

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co's X-51A Waverider made history this week when it achieved the longest hypersonic flight by a jet-fuel powered aircraft, flying for 3-1/2 minutes at five times the speed of sound, the U.S. Air Force said on Friday.

The last of four unmanned experimental military aircraft built by Boeing flew for at a top speed of Mach 5.1 over the Pacific Ocean on May 1, the Air Force said. The total flight covered 230 nautical miles in just over six minutes before the hypersonic cruiser plunged into the ocean.

"It was a full mission success," said Charlie Brink, who runs the X-51A program for the Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Systems Directorate.

The Air Force said it was the longest of the four X-51A test flights and the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever. The technology opens the door to future practical uses for hypersonic jet-fueled aircraft.

A hypersonic aircraft developed by NASA used hydrogen as a fuel to fly briefly at even higher speeds in 2004, but it would take a giant fuel tank to fly for longer periods.

"All we have learned from the X-51A Waverider will serve as the bedrock for future hypersonics research and ultimately the practical application of hypersonic flight," Brink said.

A video released by the Air Force showed the Waverider dropping down from under the left wing of a B-52 bomber at an altitude of about 50,000 feet and then accelerating away at great speed, leaving behind a long vapor trail.

The cruiser accelerated to March 4.8 in about 26 seconds, powered by a solid rocket booster built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies. After separating from the booster, the cruiser's scramjet engine lit and accelerated the vehicle to Mach 5.1 at 60,000 feet.

The vehicle continued to send back data to the control station at Edwards Air Force Base in California until it made a controlled dive into the Pacific Ocean.

"This demonstration of a practical hypersonic scramjet engine is a historic achievement that has been years in the making," said Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, the company's advanced research and prototyping arm.

"This test proves the technology has matured to the point that it opens the door to practical applications, such as advanced defense systems and more cost-effective access to space," Davis said.

The first of the four X-51A vehicles flew in May 2010, hitting nearly Mach 5 for nearly two and a half minutes.

The nearly wingless X-51 was made using mostly standard aerospace materials such as aluminum, steel and titanium, although some carbon composites were used in the fins. For heat protection, the vehicle used insulation tiles similar to those used on board the NASA Space Shuttle orbiters.

The Air Force said the four X-51As were built to demonstrate the new technology, not as a prototype for a new weapon system. The program is aimed at paving the way to future hypersonic weapons, hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and future access to space, it said.

Since scramjets are able to burn atmospheric oxygen, they can be made lighter than conventional rockets, which may allow satellites to be launched into orbit more efficiently and cheaply.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Additional reporting by Don Pessin; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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