From NASA science news: Last week, on Feb. 11th, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a five-year mission to study the sun. Researchers have called the advanced spacecraft the “crown jewel” of NASA’s heliophysics fleet. SDO will beam back IMAX-quality images of solar explosions and peer beneath the stellar surface to see the sun’s magnetic dynamo in action.
SDO is designed to amaze—and it got off to a good start.
“The observatory did something amazing before it even left the atmosphere,” says SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Moments after launch, SDO’s Atlas V rocket flew past a sundog hanging suspended in the blue Florida sky and, with a rippling flurry of shock waves, destroyed it. Click on the image below to launch a video recorded by 13-year-old Anna Herbst at NASA’s Banana River viewing site—and don’t forget to turn up the volume to hear the reaction of the crowd.
Above: SDO has a close encounter with a sundog. Movie formats: 10 MB Quicktime, 1 MB mpeg-4. Credit: Anna Herbst of Bishop, California.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” says Anna. “The shock waves were so cool.” Anna traveled with classmate Amelia Phillips three thousand miles from Bishop, California, to witness the launch. “I’m so glad we came,” says Amelia. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Sundogs are formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high, cold cirrus clouds. As the crystals drift down from the sky like leaves fluttering from trees, aerodynamic forces tend to align their broad faces parallel to the ground. When sunlight hits a patch of well-aligned crystals at just the right distance from the sun, voila!–a sundog.
“When the Atlas V rocket penetrated the cirrus, shock waves rippled through the cloud and destroyed the alignment of the crystals,” explains atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. “This extinguished the sundog.”
Videos by other photographers at Banana River show the shock waves particularly well. Here’s one from Romeo Durscher of Stanford, California, and another from Barbara Tomlinson of Beachton, Georgia.
In the past, says Cowley, there have been anecdotal reports of atmospheric disturbances destroying sundogs—for instance, “gunfire and meteor shock waves have been invoked to explain their disruption. But this is the first video I know of that shows the effect in action.”
Right: Sundogs are formed by the refracting action of plate-shaped ice crystals. Image credit: Les Cowley/Atmospheric Optics [more]
The effect on the crowd was electric.
“When the sundog disappeared, we started screaming and jumping up and down,” says Pesnell. “SDO hit a home run: Perfect launch, rippling waves, and a disappearing sundog. You couldn’t ask for a better start for a mission.”
SDO is now in orbit. “The observatory is doing great as the post-launch checkout continues,” he reports. “We’ll spend much of the first month moving into our final orbit and then we’ll turn on the instruments. The first jaw-dropping images should be available sometime in April.”
Believe it or not, Pesnell says, the best is yet to come.
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This is really amazing. Not only can you witness something that has only anecdotally recorded but someone at NASA actually admits the Sun may affect our climate!
BTW The video that DirkH posted by Barbara Tomlinson is super.
Great! The Sun is a variable star with variable solar output.
Yes, the Sun influences the Earth.
Next thing, you know, they’ll be saying the Sun’s output controls climate.
Happy days are here again…
Just like when I was a kid and we all went to the neighborhood pool when it was sunny because we knew it would be warm…
Anna H,
Great shot of sundog! Because of you and Anthony bringing this clip, I learned something today. I never knew they were called Sundogs. Cool name, Sundog.
I always just thought “high cirrus clouds & ice effect” or something like that.
Thanks,
John
”””’Erik (11:14:32) : Nah, just a glitch in the IPCC, It happens when they change something..”””
Erik,
Did you take the blue pill or the red?
John
Love the way the sonic boom blows the surrounding clouds away! (Very visible on Barbara’s video). Brought back long-forgotten memories of watching a launch from the very same spot as a child back in 1976. Can’t remember what was being launched. Waiting for my mom to reply to email to tell me.
””””“February 5, 2010: For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.”””””’
“”””’The sun,” explains Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC, “is a variable star.””””’
Lika G,
You need to get out more . . . . talk to some solar physicists.
John
Has PETA weighed in on this yet? They’ll probably be able to get our President to cancel our launch program….
Old East Anglian Climate Professor (well actually a hydrologist and currently on leave to do interviews) he say:
‘Every time a sundog is destroyed a cudllywuddly polar bear dies and the angels shed a tear’.
Therefore ban any study of solar radiation..it has nothing to do with Climate
Great video Anthony, thanks for posting it. I hope they get this baby on line soon. Can’t wait to see what the hi-res images reveal!, and what confirmation it will provide about the mainstream solar model!
I’ve seen more ‘sun-dogs’ last few months than I’ve seen for several years, perhaps indicative of a lot of ice particles in the high atmosphere. Nice simple explanation of how they are formed here:-
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/graphics/2008-10-15-atmospheric-optics-sun-dogs-pillars-halos-rainbows_N.htm
“BTW The video that DirkH posted by Barbara Tomlinson is super.”
I only reposted one of the links in the main post to spare people the scrolling.
Robert E. Phelan (21:05:09) :
Has PETA weighed in on this yet? They’ll probably be able to get our President to cancel our launch program…
Yeah, I can hardly wait for PETA’s first screed denouncing NASA for its wanton destruction of SunKittens…
Quote: James F. Evans (12:14:48) :
Science@NASA: Solar Dynamics Observatory: The ‘Variable Sun’ Mission
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2010/05feb_sdo.htm
“February 5, 2010: For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.”
“The sun,” explains Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC, “is a variable star.”
“Over longer periods of decades to centuries, solar activity waxes and wanes with a complex rhythm that researchers are still sorting out. The most famous “beat” is the 11-year sunspot cycle, described in many texts as a regular, clockwork process. In fact, it seems to have a mind of its own.”
“SDO is going to revolutionize our view of the sun.” — Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC
. . . .
“To the amazement of many researchers, the solar constant has turned out to be not constant.”
“‘Solar constant’ is an oxymoron,” says Judith Lean of the Naval Research Lab. “Satellite data show that the sun’s total irradiance rises and falls with the sunspot cycle by a significant amount.”
. . . .
“Add it all up and you get a lot of energy,” says Lean. “How this might affect weather and climate is a matter of—at times passionate—debate.”
– – – – – –
Thanks, James.
To revolutionize NASA’s view of the Sun, NASA need only explain why the very top of the Sun’s atmosphere is 91% H and 9% He – the lightest and the next lightest elements, respectively, and lightweight isotopes of xenon in the solar wind are enriched by ~3.5% per mass unit, from Xe-124 to Xe-136.
Solar wind xenon was measured in lunar samples at Caltech, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Missouri-Rolla, the University of Bern-Switzerland, Washington University, etc.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Science
Former NASA PI for Apollo