On February 11, 2010, when NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched into space, its path took it directly through an atmospheric optical phenomenon known as a solarium. In the video above, you can hear the observers panting in surprise when the rainbow-colored gosolot disappears as the probe passes through this part of the atmosphere. It was a auspicious start for a spaceship that has helped us understand our local star. And the launch also brought to light a new form of ice halo and taught those who love and study the optics of the sky new insights into how shock waves interact with clouds.
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A sun dog is a bright rainbow-colored spot in the sky, formed by the refraction of sunlight through plate-shaped ice crystals that drift from the sky like leaves coming out of trees. Cowley, of the Atmospheric Optics website, explained what happens in the video in a Science @ NASA post:
When the rocket penetrated the cirrus clouds, the shock waves ran through the cloud and destroyed the alignment of the ice crystals. This turned off the sun.
In this simulation, the sun is surrounded by a 22-degree halo and flanked by solar dogs. Read more at Les Cowley’s Atmospheric Optics.
In the video, take a close look at the bright column of white light that appears next to the Atlas V rocket that propelled the SDO launch in 2011. Although Cowley and other sky optics experts understood why the dog went missing, they did not understand the subsequent events, specifically that column of white light. Cowley said:
A bright column of white light appeared next to Atlas V and followed the rocket into the sky. We had never seen anything like it.
View larger. | When the Solar Dynamic Observatory (bright streak in the lower left quadrant of the photo) withdrew from Cape Canaveral on February 11, 2010, its launch allowed optics experts to discover a new form of ice halo. Image via NASA / Goddard / Anne Koslosky.
Cowley and his partner Robert Greenler at first could not explain this column of light. Then they realized that the plate-shaped ice crystals were organized by the shock wave of the Atlas V. Cowley explained:
The crystals are tilted between 8 and 12 degrees. They then rotate so that the main axis of the crystal describes a conical motion. Toy lids and gyroscopes do. The Earth does this once every 26,000 years. The movement is orderly and precise.
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By the way, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has been observing the sun for 11 years now. It is one of many observatories that keep an eye on our sun, which is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program. The following video shows some of SDO’s successes over the last decade.
In a nutshell: On February 11, 2010, a solar observatory launched into space ripped off a gosolot and created a new halo of ice that surprised scientists.
Via Science @ NASA
Via Les Cowley’s Atmospheric Optics
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