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OBX got best views of Sunday night NASA rocket launch

After more that a week of unfavorable weather, NASA launched a four-stage, Black Brant XII sounding rocket on Sunday night from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

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Clouds created by ATREX experiment launched from Wallops Flight Facility
By
Tony Rice
, NASA Ambassador

After more that a week of unfavorable weather, NASA launched a four-stage, Black Brant XII sounding rocket on Sunday night from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The experiment studies energy transfer in the upper atmosphere by releasing a visible vapor high above the Atlantic.

The launch came near the end of the available launch window. Had Sunday's launch been scrubbed like the previous nine, the team would have been forced to wait several weeks for the next opportunity. Beginning Monday, the Moon's position above the horizon would interfere with gathering data from the experiment.

Though clouds blocked the view for central and western North Carolina, it was visible along the east coast. NASA noted social media reports coming from as far north as Toronto during the live broadcast.

Best views were along North Carolina's Outer Banks.

A NASA experiment studying how energy flows in space will briefly create glowing clouds in the eastern sky, in a launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia Saturday evening.

The experiment will create artificial auroras by releasing (harmless) barium vapor, creating two clouds which will energize electrons in the upper atmosphere. Researchers are looking to study the flow of energy shown in shapes these clouds take on.

“The electrons in Earth’s space environment and in the solar wind have relatively low energies. Yet the aurora is generated by very high energy electrons. What is the energization mechanism?” said Peter Delamere, KiNET-X principal investigator from the University of Alaska - Fairbanks.

Thin clouds left by the ATREX experiment on March 27, 2012 after release trimethyl aluminum, a substance that spontaneously burns in the presence of oxygen. (Image: NASA/Wallops Flight Facility)

Previous similar missions have been visible up and down the east coast and surprisingly far west. The violet color of the clouds created by the KiNET-X mission are not as visible to the human eye.

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