Rocket launch Monday at 8:04pm EDT from Virginia for research in ionosphere will produce two green-violet clouds
Posted by
Chris in Tampa on 5/9/2021, 8:31 pm
https://twitter.com/NASA_Wallops/
The launch was scrubbed last night and tonight. It may be visible, depending on clouds, across much of the eastern U.S. The first night's launch was at 8:02pm EDT. Tonight was to be at 8:03pm. It should increase by a minute each day they try to launch it. Upper level winds have been an issue each night. There is a 40 minute window and each night so far they have scrubbed the launch. From listening to the live stream from earlier tonight, they have a plane around Bermuda that will monitor what they release. I didn't realize what the launch was until I looked into it more tonight. It might be interesting to see, if it's not cloudy where you are when they are finally able to launch it. I never heard of this kind of mission, but the end of the section I quote below indicates it might be a little hard to see the violet color. You might only briefly see the green, if you are able.
Some of the tweets below apply to the previous launch attempt times.
Article about it:
https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/2021/press-release/nasa-wallops-may-8-rocket-launch-visible-in-eastern-united-states
"A four-stage Black Brant XII rocket will be used for the mission that includes the release of barium vapor that will form two green-violet clouds that may be visible for about 30 seconds. The barium vapor is not harmful to the environment or public health
The mission, called the KiNETic-scale energy and momentum transport eXperiment, or KiNet-X, is designed to study a very fundamental problem in space plasmas, namely, how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space that are magnetically connected?
The vapor will be released approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds to around 10 minutes after launch at about 217-249 miles altitude over the Atlantic Ocean and 540-560 miles downrange from Wallops and just north of Bermuda.
Immediately after release of the vapor, the spherical clouds are a mixture of green and violet, but that phase only lasts about 30 seconds when the un-ionized component of the cloud has diffused away. After exposure to sunlight the vapor clouds quickly ionize and take on a violet color.
The ionized portion of the cloud becomes tied to the magnetic field lines and diffuses parallel to the field lines but not perpendicular to it. In the mid-Atlantic region latitudes, the field lines are inclined by about 45 degrees to the horizontal, so the violet clouds stretch out in a slanted orientation and look more like short trails than a cloud. Because the motion of the neutral portion of the clouds is not constrained by the magnetic field lines, they spread out more quickly and become too thin to see with the naked eye much sooner than the ionized component.
In general, the human eye does not see violet colors very well in darkness. The KiNET-X clouds will therefore be more difficult for the casual observer to see than some of the previous vapor missions launched from Wallops."
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In this thread:
Rocket launch Monday at 8:04pm EDT from Virginia for research in ionosphere will produce two green-violet clouds - Chris in Tampa, 5/9/2021, 8:31 pm- It launched on Sunday - Chris in Tampa, 5/16/2021, 10:33 pm
- Final chance to launch it anytime soon will be Sunday between 8:04pm and 8:54pm EDT - Chris in Tampa, 5/15/2021, 9:03 pm
- Postponed to Friday - Chris in Tampa, 5/12/2021, 6:59 pm
- Scrubbed again. Maybe Wednesday at 8:06pm EDT with another 40 minute window - Chris in Tampa, 5/11/2021, 8:45 pm
- Looks like they will try again Tuesday at 8:05pm with another 40 minute window - Chris in Tampa, 5/10/2021, 8:22 pm
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