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NASA rockets leave glowing trails against the night sky

Published: 2012-03-27 10:12:00
Updated: 2012-03-27 11:38:01

Posted: March 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.

Slideshow     ATREX Cloud NASA rockets leave glowing trails in the night sky

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.

Copyright 2012 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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20 Comments


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How can any chemicals be harmless? I don't trust what NASA says when it is safe. The same goes for FDA
nialet
March 27, 2012 11:26 a.m.
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Shouldn't NASA warn people about impending launches? We watched the rockets this morning and debated calling someone but decided since it was coming from the north east it was probably jets from Seymour Johnson Air Base using countermeasure flares...what if it was a rocket attack from a foreign country...no one would know to report it!
inclusion7
March 27, 2012 11:31 a.m.
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If I would have known, I would have gotten up to watch it.
anonemoose
March 27, 2012 11:37 a.m.
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This is pathetic. A few "suborbital sounding rockets" and the media are all over it. In the past when NASA was doing real rocket and space stuff it would have gone unnoticed. Shows how low NASA has gone in such a short amount of time since the shuttles were sold off.
Click to view my profile Huey
March 27, 2012 11:41 a.m.
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If I would have known, I would have gotten up to watch it.

That makes two of us!!! Why tell us now we could have watch it and I for one would have loved to have seen it.
Click to view my profile ncouterbanks69
March 27, 2012 11:44 a.m.
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"Why tell us now we could have watch it and I for one would have loved to have seen it."

wral is huge on that. there's a story at least once a week where i go 'why didn't i know about that - i'dve been there!'. seems wral's not into letting people know what's going on, only what's already happened...
monkeyboy
March 27, 2012 12:06 p.m.
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"How can any chemicals be harmless?"

Everything on the planet is made up of chemicals. Whether they are harmless or not depends on the particular chemical.
baracus
March 27, 2012 12:07 p.m.
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For all of the "Why weren't we told?" folks. This has been in the news for a couple of weeks. You have to read other stories and and more than one source for your news, not just the headlines on WRAL. Also try www.heavens-above.com this site will give you some really cool things to look at in the night sky.
Big Bill
March 27, 2012 12:13 p.m.
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Thanks Obama for setting back space exploration 40 years.
C6-YA
March 27, 2012 12:29 p.m.
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"This has been in the news for a couple of weeks." I am not going to search for that kind of info on a daily basis on obscure sites as you mentioned as I do not have an interest in astronomy. It should be posted in regular news to inform the public. All goes back to America's weak public address systems.
inclusion7
March 27, 2012 12:35 p.m.
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