Spaceweather.com
11/23 /2006 view the Nov. 2006 Aurora Gallery
NOT A ROCKET: Did a rocket just launch? That's what onlookers in the Dominican Republic were wondering last Friday when they saw this rainbow-colored plume in the sky: Photo credit: Tracy Jurgensen
Rocket plumes, filled with ice crystals and water droplets, sometimes do glow with the colors of a rainbow--but this is not rocket exhaust.
"This is an iridescent pileus cloud," explains atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "On sunny afternoons, cumulus clouds boil upwards. They push layers of moist air above them even higher where they cool and condense to form cloud caps, 'pileus,' over the cumulus. Clouds formed so quickly have their droplets all the same size--the perfect condition for iridescent colors."
LEONID FLURRY: On Nov. 19th, Earth ran into a cloud of comet dust--debris from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The result was an outburst of Leonid meteors over Europe. In Spain, Dutch Meteor Society members Casper ter Kuile and Robert Haas caught the outburst on video: very nice 6 MB movie.
2006 Leonid Photo Gallery
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