Science

RAVAN

Earth Radiation Budget Technology Demonstrator · NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

RAVAN (Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes), a NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory CubeSat launched in 2016 to test an entirely new way of measuring one of climate science's most elusive numbers: Earth's energy imbalance — the tiny difference between incoming sunlight and outgoing heat that ultimately drives global warming. RAVAN's detector uses carbon nanotubes, among the blackest materials ever manufactured, to absorb radiation with unprecedented accuracy from a satellite small enough to fit in a suitcase.