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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesNASA’s striking AirBOS images most likely show shock waves around supersonic T-38 jets—not the X-59. The photographs make invisible air-density changes visible by recording how those changes bend light. NASA developed the airborne imaging technique to study shock-wave patterns, including those expected around the quieter-boom X-59.
What NASA’s photographs show
The title appears to refer to NASA’s Air-to-Air Background Oriented Schlieren (AirBOS) photographs. Because the title does not identify a particular image or release, the T-38 identification is the most likely match, not a certainty.
NASA says one AirBOS formation image shows T-38s from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School flying about 30 feet apart, with the trailing aircraft about 10 feet lower. The image reveals shock waves from both aircraft and how the patterns interact. The jets are surrounded by visible lines, but those lines are not sound waves photographed in the air: they visualize changes in pressure and density.
How NASA made the shock waves visible
Schlieren imaging works because changes in air density bend light. A camera records a background through the disturbed air, and image processing detects how background features shifted to reconstruct the shock-wave pattern. The method has a long history: NASA’s Quesst science page says August Toepler invented schlieren photography in 1864 to study supersonic motion.
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The airborne AirBOS setup
For the capture described on NASA’s Quesst science page, a B-200 aircraft carrying an updated imaging system flew at around 30,000 feet. Two T-38s held formation and flew supersonically directly below it at the moment of capture. The resulting image began as a monochromatic image and was later presented as a colorized composite. NASA’s 2019 AirBOS account says the upgraded approach captured “three times the amount of data in the same amount of time” as the earlier schlieren approach; that is NASA’s comparison of those methods, not a general camera-performance specification.
Airborne and ground-based schlieren
Airborne schlieren places the camera-equipped aircraft in the sky and uses a background behind or below the subject aircraft. Ground-based approaches can use a celestial background such as the Sun or Moon, allowing the camera to remain on the ground. NASA’s 2015 explanation describes the celestial-background approach as potentially simpler and cheaper, but neither setup is universally better: background availability, camera position, operational complexity, and image processing all affect what is practical.
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Why supersonic aircraft produce shock waves
At subsonic speeds, pressure disturbances can travel ahead of an aircraft. A supersonic aircraft outruns those disturbances, creating rapid pressure changes called shock waves around its components. As the waves travel, they can merge into a pressure-wave pattern that reaches the ground as a sonic boom. The boom is associated with that continuing pattern, not merely with the instant the aircraft crosses Mach 1.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How these images relate to NASA’s X-59
The AirBOS T-38 images are not photographs of the X-59. NASA refined airborne schlieren imaging to help study and validate the X-59’s shock-wave distribution. NASA Armstrong’s Ed Haering, principal investigator for schlieren photography, explained the connection: “This is all in preparation for X-59. We want to be able to have a proven system to be able to image the shock waves of the X-59. That way we can have proof of the shockwave distribution around the X-59 that hopefully will result in the quiet thump on the ground.”
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NASA’s Quesst mission has two goals: develop the X-59 with technology intended to reduce a loud sonic boom to a gentler thump, then fly it over communities to gather public-response data for regulators. NASA says the data is intended to help inform acceptable noise thresholds for future commercial supersonic flight over land. The photographs document shock-wave structures; by themselves, they do not prove that every supersonic aircraft can avoid a boom or change flight rules.
Quesst’s planned stages
NASA’s mission overview describes three phases: aircraft build and initial flights, acoustic validation, and community-response testing. NASA’s mission page lists the mission as active, with a first flight in 2025 and a duration through 2029. Those dates are NASA’s listed plan and may change. The T-38 image campaign is distinct from the later X-59 acoustic-validation and community-response work.
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Sources
- NASA: Quesst mission overview
- NASA: Quesst science and imagery
- NASA Armstrong: NASA Advances Shock Wave Photography
- NASA: AirBOS shock-wave photography account
- NASA Earth Observatory: Schlieren Photography Captures Shock Waves
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