A NASA model motorized sailplane catches a thermal during one of 17 flights to demonstrate that updrafts can extend flight time and save energy for small UAVs.

This false-color infrared image, obtained by NASA Cassini spacecraft, shows clouds of large ammonia ice particles dredged up by a powerful storm in Saturn northern hemisphere.

NASA Dryden aerospace engineer Michael Allen hand-launches a model motorized sailplane during a study validating the use of heat thermals to extend flight time.

A NASA remote-controlled model motorized sailplane lies over Rogers Dry Lake to test the theory that catching heat thermals extends flight time for small UAVs.

This color-enhanced image of a massive, raging storm in Jupiter's northern hemisphere was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft during its ninth close flyby of the gas giant planet. The image was taken on Oct. 24, 2017 at 10:32 a.m. PDT (1:32 p.m. EDT). At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 6,281 miles (10,108 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of Jupiter at a latitude of 41.84 degrees. The spatial scale in this image is 4.2 miles/pixel (6.7 kilometers/pixel). The storm is rotating counter-clockwise with a wide range of cloud altitudes. The darker clouds are expected to be deeper in the atmosphere than the brightest clouds. Within some of the bright "arms" of this storm, smaller clouds and banks of clouds can be seen, some of which are casting shadows to the right side of this picture (sunlight is coming from the left). The bright clouds and their shadows range from approximately 4 to 8 miles (7 to 12 kilometers) in both widths and lengths. These appear similar to the small clouds in other bright regions Juno has detected and are expected to be updrafts of ammonia ice crystals possibly mixed with water ice. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21971

This graphic depicts the evolutionary process of "shallow lightning" and ammonia-water hailstones called "mushballs." An anvil-shaped thunderstorm cloud originates about 40 miles (65 kilometers) below Jupiter's visible cloud deck. Powered by water-based moist convection, the cloud generates strong updrafts that move liquid water and water ice particles upward. About 12 miles (19 kilometers) up, temperatures are so low that all of the water particles turn to ice. Still climbing, the ice particles cross a region located about 14 miles (23 kilometers) below the upper clouds, where temperatures are between minus 121 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 85 degrees Celsius) and minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 100 degrees Celsius), (depicted as green-hashed layer). At that point, ammonia vapor in the atmosphere acts like an antifreeze, melting the water-ice crystals, transforming them into ammonia-water liquid droplets which then grow and gather a solid icy shell to become mushballs. Once big enough, these slushy hailstones fall down, transporting both ammonia and water into Jupiter's deep atmosphere where the mushballs eventually evaporate. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24042