Space Shuttle's Noctilucent Clouds

[Jason Persoff]

I'll open by saying I'm really sorry I don't have any pictures of this mostly because it took me too long to figure out what was happening.

This morning I was driving to work before dawn. It was maybe an hour before full sunrise and I noted these amazing noctilucent clouds hovering over the Florida coast. This, of course, doesn't make any sense because of the season and the lattitude. But they were absolutely spectacular.

So I while I drove, I just pondered about any other explanations that could possibly explain what I was seeing. I had none. But again, this didn't make any sense.

When I got to work, I looked up again and I noted that the noctilucent clouds were now replaced with an orange glowing thing trail of altostratus. Jet contrail? Wouldn't explain that. Weird anvil blowoff? But without the storms??

Finally, as the sun came up I then saw a midlevel ribbon turning blue-purple to the south. It hit me that what I was seeing was in fact the shuttle's launch trail.

It was a true weather geek treat.

 

[rdale]

From http://spaceweather.com

 

[Jason Persoff]

That is amazing--and precisely (though more dimly) what I saw. Fantastic...thank you sir.

I was afraid someone would scoff, but when I went to look at more images from Spaceweather.Com, I saw this one (and sit awed):

Credit: Jonathan Sabin.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

This is a pretty strange phenomenon that happens during shuttle launches at or after dusk.

Above: Taken from airliner about 75 miles west of a shuttle launch (last year in March of 2009), showing the "noctilucent cloud'.

I think the SRB separation (at more than 20 miles altitude) causes a plume of ice crystals that causes this, since it is ABOVE the dusk "terminator" (in the sunlight).

 

[D. Hayes]

I've seen the shuttle reenter at night before. Many many years back (93/94) and the contrail looks like any other except it glowed white. This was from Altus OK going west to east.