Molliani
Joined: 16 Mar 2001
Posts: 428
Location: Illinois |
Night Clouds by NASA
 Fri Jun 20, 2003 10:01 pm
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See a trimethylaluminum-burning cloud photographed over the University of Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range in 1978. Read more at:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/20jun_TMAclouds.htm?list756354
June 20, 2003: One night soon, people on the eastern seaboard of the United States might see some strange clouds in the sky: milky white, glowing and twisting in the wind. The clouds will be manmade, created by scientists to study Earth's ionosphere--a layer of our atmosphere near the edge of space.
Three rockets launched from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., will release a chemical called trimethylaluminum (TMA) into the air 90 km to 175 km above the Atlantic Ocean. TMA burns spontaneously in the presence of oxygen. The harmless by-products of this glowing reaction will be visible from coastal Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington DC, and possibly parts of lower New York and Pennsylvania.
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