Mark your calendars for June 11 , East Coast skywatchers : We may be in for a endearing show Sunday night , asNASA launchesa sounding rocket and brightly colored vapour clouds into the night .
The ( click - inspired?)Terrier - Improved Malemuterocket is aninformation - gather craftladen with instruments to catch info about our atmosphere and ionosphere . Its way will follow a sharp U - shaped trajectory , launch from NASA ’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island , Virginia , soaring miles into the sky , peaking , then falling back to Earth and plunging into the Atlantic Ocean .
The launch is schedule to occur between 9:04 and 9:19 p.m. EDT . expert estimate that the flight will take about eight minutes from commencement to conclusion . Approximately four or five mo after the rocket takes off , NASA will deploy 10 pop can – sized canister full ofreactive chemicals . The cans will burst 96 to 124 sea mile in the air , produce tremendous , vivacious blooms of harmless red and blue - dark-green cloud take shape by the interaction of Ba , atomic number 38 , and cupric - oxide . ( These are commonly find in fireworks . ) If the weather join forces , thesevapor tracersshould be visible from New York to North Carolina and westward into Virginia .
scientist will track the crusade and waste of the clouds to understand how particles and air are flowing through the sky above us . Deploying the vaporization tracer bullet at a distance from the rocket engine should help allow for an even fuller picture of just what ’s going on up there .
We ’re using parole likeshouldandmightbecause Sunday ’s launch is far from a trusted matter . It ’s already been cancel and rescheduled four time — three meter for overcast sky , and once due to the presence of some boats in the launching hazard sphere .
Those in Virginia or nearby ( it ’s near the Delaware border ) can maneuver to the Wallops Visitor Center at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday to watch over the launch up close .
The rest of us can captivate it via Ustream or on the project’sFacebookandTwitterpages .
For launch and undertaking update , chequer out theWallops websiteor download the endearingly corny What ’s Up at Wallops app , uncommitted throughGoogle PlayandiTunes .
