Pink Clouds and Science Reruns

A pink cloud was reported in the early morning, (pre-sunrise), sky over Arizona on Wednesday[1]. NASA and the DOD soon thereafter took credit for the cloud. They had launched a rocket into the ionosphere where it released a vapor that created the cloud. The purpose of the experiment was to study the effects of the vapor on the ionosphere itself. The article, referenced above from ABC, said:

"The experiment, which also involved using ground stations to take measurements of the ionosphere, was intended to develop scientific explanations for ionospheric disturbances and their effects on modern technology, officials said."

This has all been done before[2] as it turns out! In 1956 the Air Force launched two missiles from White Sands Missile Range with payloads of nitric oxide. The gas released in the ionosphere created a glowing cloud described as being 'yellow-red'[3] in color. They were studying the ionosphere as well, which, back in 1958, was described with a bit more panache [4]:

"In this electronic age, everybody knows that the ionosphere is an electrified upper atmosphere region that bounces off radio waves around the globe."

The 1958 definition of the ionosphere also nicely explains what the experiment in both cases was looking for: how radio wave propagation was effected, (also shown in the following diagram from the same 1958 piece):

The folks at Mysterious Universe[5] seem a little peeved about the DoD's failure to reveal what the specific released vapor was, but while the vapor could have been a number of things, it's interesting to note the color of light emitted by ionized nitrogen:

References:
1. ABC News report:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/pink-cloud-visible-arizona-mexico-rocket-launch-29222498#.VPEmpPDwWeY.twitter

2. Coverage of the earlier experiment here:
http://copaseticflow.blogspot.com/2014/07/project-smoke-puff-haarp-chemtrails.html

3. Journal of Chemical Physics coverage of the 1956 experiments, (apologies for the paywall)
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/25/1/10.1063/1.1742832

4. 1958 Popular Mechanics article describing the first series of experiments
http://goo.gl/gZ72AR

5. Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/02/strange-pink-cloud-over-arizona-has-many-seeing-red/

Comments

The Valentine's Day Magnetic Monopole

There's an assymetry to the form of the two Maxwell's equations shown in picture 1. While the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the electric charge density at a given point, the divergence of the magnetic field is equal to zero. This is typically explained in the following way. While we know that electrons, the fundamental electric charge carriers exist, evidence seems to indicate that magnetic monopoles, the particles that would carry magnetic 'charge', either don't exist, or, the energies required to create them are so high that they are exceedingly rare. That doesn't stop us from looking for them though! Keeping with the theme of Fairbank[1] and his academic progeny over the semester break, today's post is about the discovery of a magnetic monopole candidate event by one of the Fairbank's graduate students, Blas Cabrera[2]. Cabrera was utilizing a loop type of magnetic monopole detector. Its operation is in concept very sim

Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

Now available as a Kindle ebook for 99 cents ! Get a spiffy ebook, and fund more physics The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems , there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes! What do we actually want? To convert the Cartesian nabla to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates. What we’ll need: 1. The Cartesian Nabla: 2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates: 3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system: How to do it: Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables. The chain

More Cowbell! Record Production using Google Forms and Charts

First, the what : This article shows how to embed a new Google Form into any web page. To demonstrate ths, a chart and form that allow blog readers to control the recording levels of each instrument in Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is used. HTML code from the Google version of the form included on this page is shown and the parts that need to be modified are highlighted. Next, the why : Google recently released an e-mail form feature that allows users of Google Documents to create an e-mail a form that automatically places each user's input into an associated spreadsheet. As it turns out, with a little bit of work, the forms that are created by Google Docs can be embedded into any web page. Now, The Goods: Click on the instrument you want turned up, click the submit button and then refresh the page. Through the magic of Google Forms as soon as you click on submit and refresh this web page, the data chart will update immediately. Turn up the:

Copasetic Flow

Search This Blog