On March 31, 1967, The New York Times reported that the display "puzzled thousands of persons" in the New York area, and also resulted in people along the East Coast calling newspapers and police stations for an explanation of the strange sightings. In March 1967, for example, NASA launched sounding rockets from Wallops Island, producing an array of colored clouds in the evening sky. Of course, the sudden and unexpected appearance of several multicolored clouds in the early evening sky might alarm unsuspecting people and lead to a rash of UFO reports. But they could linger for as long as 20 minutes before fading completely away. EDT, about 30 minutes past local sunset, when the sun's rays will still be coming in from the west to light the clouds at high altitudes.ĭepending on atmospheric conditions, the barium clouds could persist for as little as 2 minutes. Since observers must be in darkness while the barium cloud is in sunlight, the technique is limited to observations near sunset, local time.Īs a result, the Black Brant IX rocket has a 10-minute launch window beginning at 7 p.m. Initially, they may appear to glow with prismatic colors, although the primary colors are expected to trend toward bluish-green and purple-red. Vapor clouds seemingly explode into view when first released, sometimes blooming so rapidly they resemble fuzzy fireworks.ĭepending on the state of the atmosphere, these clouds may appear to expand to several times the apparent size of the moon on other occasions, they appear to elongate in a north-south fashion or stretch out into long plumes. As a result, the cloud can be used to track the motion of charged particles in the ionosphere, as well as the motion of neutral particles in the upper atmosphere.Ī small quantity of strontium will be added to the barium mixture for Wednesday's experiment, making it easier to track the cloud, NASA officials said. These materials - including barium - make visible the naturally occurring flows of ionized and neutral particles, either by luminescing at distinct wavelengths in the visible and infrared part of the spectrum or by scattering sunlight.įor example, a fraction of a barium cloud ionizes quickly when exposed to sunlight. Such research has greatly aided understanding of the planet's near-space environment, NASA officials said. Scientists have launched vapor tracers into the upper atmosphere since the 1950s. Mission updates will be noted on the Wallops launch status line at 75. The evening of the launch depends on weather conditions at the launch site as well as the presence of clear skies for at least one of two NASA optical tracking stations. The rocket was originally scheduled to launch this evening (Oct.
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