NASA's giant red blob experiment

Interesting experiment, I've tried to search for NASA's spaceweather.com but can't find it.

One day after a Chinese rocket disintegrated brightly over the western USA, another set of strange lights appeared over the same region. This time it was NASA’s doing. Before sunrise on Feb. 25th, a Terrier-Black Brant research rocket lifted off from White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, carrying an experiment to Earth’s ionosphere. Vapors released by the rocket created a luminous red blob in the dawn sky, shown here over Mesa, Arizona:

The ionosphere is a layer of Earth’s upper atmosphere where solar UV radiation knocks electrons off atoms and molecules. Plasma in the ionosphere is crucial to over-the-horizon radio communications, and also affects the quality of GPS navigation and other modern technologies. According to a White Sands press release, ground stations monitored the cloud to gather data on “natural wave-like structures referred to as traveling ionospheric disturbances.” Story from NASA’s Spaceweather.com

wattsupwiththat.com...

a reply to: EnigmaAgent

Amazing - according to the press release, the rocket released a small volume of vapor into the ionosphere - but it was enough to illuminate that area with the pinkish color:

...research rocket will release a small quantity of vapor—about as much as is contained in a BBQ grill propane tank

One more quote from the press release, describing the purpose of the experiment and what's happening up there:

Designed to reach an altitude of over 100 miles, the research rocket will release a small quantity of vapor ... to study processes responsible for formation of the Earth’s ionosphere, the region of near-Earth space where electrons naturally separate from molecules and float separately to create a plasma, or ionized gas. Colorful clouds may be visible over southern N.M. near dawn as the sun illuminates the vapor before it diffuses harmlessly away into space.

Great find - thanks for sharing this OP!

I say......bollocks

originally posted by: jazz10
I say......bollocks

Why thank you kind sir.

Thanks for the input. May I ask where are you getting your info from.a reply to: FamCore

Good observance OP, although I am very curious about the mention of Spaceweather . com being part of NASA. Anyway I'm off to bedybyes for now.
But, one quote from your link was quickly castigated and likely wrongly, but I need to chew on it.

"I hope this isn’t something about dispersing aerosols as a test of that anti-warming theory. Anybody have a handle on the intent here?"

BTW, check out Spaceweather.com for yesterday 2nd March.
spaceweather.com...

SO...they created a fake aurora of sorts? Is that kind of the gist of this?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

They're testing a more effective, higher visibility chemtrail.

Wow! This is cool. I remember in the early seventies, maybe '70 or '71, I was about five or six and there was something very similar to this in the sky above Columbus, Georgia in the early evening, around 8:00 to 8:30 PM. All of our neighbors came out to see. There was a lot of talk about alien invasion. I was young and this was the first I remember hearing of the possibility of life on other planets. IT SCARED ME TO DEATH!!! But as I got older it helped fuel my passion for all things Alien and UFO. The next day my dad came home from work and told me that he had heard on the radio that NASA had released a gas into the atmosphere to track the winds, or something like that. Seeing that red cloud in the night sky is one of my most vivid early childhood memories, and I have watched the skies over the years hoping to see something like that again. Thank you for posting.

a reply to: EnigmaAgent



Sooooo....

NASA duplicated the Northern Lights, aka, the Aurora Borealis.

[shrug]

I used to see them every night as I took the trash out when I was a kid.

It's not an aurora. The cloud is just reflecting sunlight, which just happens to be red because it happened at sunrise. From the press release:

Colorful clouds may be visible over southern N.M. near dawn as the sun illuminates the vapor before it diffuses harmlessly away into space.

a reply to: nullafides

No they did not replicate the Aurora Borealis. That is a completely different process. An aurora creates its own light. This experiment by NASA was just reflecting light from the Sun.

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
a reply to: nullafides

No they did not replicate the Aurora Borealis. That is a completely different process. An aurora creates its own light. This experiment by NASA was just reflecting light from the Sun.

Well, for the layman much as myself...they created a blob of something that either produced light or reflected light in the atmosphere.

Same thing in my book. Any difference is borderline superfluous.

a reply to: nullafides

... in that case you will always remain a layman.

The red blob only reflected light. Auroras create light. Big difference.

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
a reply to: nullafides

... in that case you will always remain a layman.

The red blob only reflected light. Auroras create light. Big difference.

Well, here folks, is the primary example of what arrogance looks and reads like.

A bit of wisdom, passed on to me at the beginning of my career...pick a field, stick to it. You cannot begin to know everything. Or learn everything.

originally posted by: nullafides
Well, here folks, is the primary example of what arrogance looks and reads like.

A bit of wisdom, passed on to me at the beginning of my career...pick a field, stick to it. You cannot begin to know everything. Or learn everything.

Well, here folks, is a primary example of what ignorance looks and reads like.

A bit of wisdom, passed on to me at the beginning of my career... "Learn your job, learn your coworker's job, learn your boss' job, learn everyone's job in your career. Never stop learning. Knowledge is power."

You can't possibly know everything, but you can at least try. Blind ignorance is bad, but being willingly ignorant is a disease.

Whoever gave you your career advice, nullafides, is a complete moron.

a reply to: WeAre0ne

You are a pompous jerk.

Let me buy you a beer

Amazing, I have to wonder how much of that stuff was put into the atmosphere. If it was just a little bit of vapor, this stuff must have been pretty cloudy to produce any light effects like this. I lean more towards this being a ton of vapor, not a little bit

Saw something similar on the East Coast a few years ago that resulted from launches out of Wallops Island. The purpose of the experiments seems to be different, but the technique is similar

NASA ATREX Lanch

Washington Post: NASA successfully launches 5 rockets from Wallops (VIDEOS AND PHOTOS)