NASA rockets leave glowing trails against the night sky

Five sounding rockets released 80 seconds apart Tuesday morning left glowing trails in the night sky as they traveled through the upper-level jet stream.

Posted 2:12 p.m. Mar 27, 2012 — Updated 3:38 p.m. Mar 27, 2012

RALEIGH, N.C. — Tuesday morning, starting at 4:58 a.m., NASA launched five sounding rockets bound for the upper-level jet stream 60 miles above above the Earth's surface. The resulting glowing clouds created by the experiment were visible from the WRAL viewing area and reportedly from Wilmington, N.C., to Buffalo, N.Y., and as far west as Charleston, W.Va.

The rockets released a harmless chemical which, when combined with the oxygen in the atmosphere, created glowing clouds. Cameras positioned at the Virginia launch site along with others in Duck, N.C., and near Atlantic City, N.J., tracked the clouds. Imagery from those cameras will be used to create a three dimensional model of the winds, which can reach 300 mph, for further study.

This media cannot be viewed right now.

The launch, originally scheduled for March 14, was scrubbed several times due to weather. Mission requirements included clear weather not just at the launch site but also at the other two camera sites. This morning's launch came just minutes before the end of the launch window due to high surface winds at the launch site.

Tony Rice is a volunteer in the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador program and software engineer at Cisco Systems. You can follow him on twitter @rtphokie.

Suggest A Correction