The rarest, not to mention, highest-altitude could type on Earth are the Noctilucent clouds, and scientists have recently been recording more of them compared to any point in the past decade and a half.
A CNET report said these clouds could look a little like an impressionist painting of waves on the ocean, although using the evening sky as a canvas and actual clouds as the paint.
Mesmerizing Clouds Are at a 15-Year High, SpaceX May Be the Reason
— Keith 'Mac' Rowland (@KeithMacRowland) July 5, 2022
And they had to add this: “Research has also shown that noctilucent clouds are sensitive to climate change, and their increased visibility may also be a byproduct of our warming planet.”
https://t.co/T4qk2HFLmw
Essentially, Noctilucent clouds form high in the sky during the summer months when water molecules are freezing around motes of dust in the atmosphere, developing an ethereal and artistic landscape high over the land that's included to ripple and undulate as if it's reflecting an unsettled sea somewhere.
Most noctilucent, which means "night-shining," clouds are forming in the mesosphere, approximately 31 to 53 miles, 50 to 85 kilometers on top of Earth, where one might presume there is very little dust that floats around for water vaper "to condense and freeze around."
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Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere
The majority of the material causing these clouds' formation comes from the smoke of meteors, burning up as they streak through the upper atmosphere.
Nonetheless, something else may be facilitating the recent dramatic rise of these clouds. NASA has a spacecraft known as AIM or aeronomy of ice in the mesosphere that's helping investigate all the fascinating things in the upper deck of the Earth's skies.
Scientist and professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder Cora Randall, is currently working with AIM data and was one of the first to confirm that "NLCs are way up.
Randall has seen a huge spike in the clouds in the past few days. The end of June saw a spike in terms of the frequency of noctilucent clouds that NASA describes on its website, which goes beyond previous spikes, going back to 2007. One probable cause is the substantial increase in rocket takeoffs led by SpaceX and others.
Sensitive to Climate Change
Randall also said they speculate that the spike might be because of extra water vapor brought to higher latitudes from rocket liftoffs.
Furthermore, it would take approximately ten days for the water vapor that many rocket engines are throwing off as exhaust to float up the mesosphere, explained Tony Philips, an astronomer who's writing on Spaceweather.com.
Meaning, that the late June NLC spike Randall is reporting could be associated with a SpaceX launch on June 19 that put on a show at lower altitudes right after lifting off.
She has warned that more analyses need to be carried out to verify if SpaceX is indeed playing a role in creating more rare clouds.
The study has also shown that noctilucent clouds are sensitive to climate change, and their increased visibility may be a byproduct of the warming planet.
The NLC Season
Based on a Spaceweather.com report, the best chance to spot these cloud types is when "conditions are clear, dry and warm. In the northern hemisphere, the month of July is considered an NLC season.
Observers are advised to go out around 30 minutes following sunset, then look west for the ethereal brush strokes of the eye in the sky.
The higher the latitude, the better the chance of seeing something and for the clouds to last longer during the night.
Related information about the noctilucent clouds is shown on Astrum's YouTube video below:
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