SDO "Sun Dog" mystery

11 February 2011: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), best known has made here a discovery for innovative images of the Sun on the Earth.

"It is a new form of ice Halo," says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley of England. "We saw it for the first time at the launch of the SDO-- and it teaches us new things about shock waves with clouds interaction."

Ice halos are rings and arcs of light in the sky that appear when sunlight shines through ice crystals in the air. A well-known example is the "Sun dog" - a rainbow-colored splash often seen, left or right of the morning sun. Sundogs are made of plate-shaped ice crystals from the sky like leaves from trees. * flutter to drive down

In the last year of SDO destroys a "Sun dog" - and that's how the new Halo was discovered.

SDO lifted from Cape Canaveral Air Force 11 February 2010 - a year ago today. It was a beautiful morning with only a handful of wispy cirrus clouds cross the winter landscape blue sky. Painted like the timer to zero, formed a "Sun dog" on the launch pad. Play the movie below to see what happened next - and don't forget to listen to the response of the audience the volume:

"When the missile penetrated the Cirrus, curled shock waves through the cloud, and destroyed the alignment of the ice crystals," Cowley said. "" "This goes out the"Sun dog"."

The "Sun dog" destruction was understood. However, the events that followed, not was.

"A shining column of white light appeared next to the Atlas V and followed the rocket in the sky," says Cowley. "We had never seen something similar."

Cowley and Mr Robert Greenler, which was set the mystery column to find out, to work. Somehow, shock waves from the missile must the ice crystals, the "rocket Halo.' produce have encrypted but how?" Computer models of sunlight by ice crystals in all possible directions seems inclined not explain, the SDO event.

Then came the epiphany: the crystals were not randomly scrambled eggs, Cowley and Greenler implemented. On the contrary, the plate-shaped hexagons were organized by the shock waves as a dancing army of microscopic spinning tops.

Cowley explains their successful model: "The crystals are between 8 and 12 degrees inclined." Then gyrate atrophy it so that the most important Crystal describes a conical motion axis. Toy do it tops and gyroscopes. The Earth is all 26000 years. "The application is orderly and precise."

Bottom line: Rays a missile through a Cirrus clouds can a surprising degree order produce. "This could be the start of a new field of research for his - halo dynamics," he adds.

The simulations show, that in the white column next to SDO was only a fraction of the larger oval, have appeared which would if more far-reaching had been the crystals and shock waves. A picture of the hypothetical full Halo can be found here.

"We would love to see it again and more fully" Cowley says.

"If you ever are a unique opportunity when a rocket launch" advises it with a laugh, "forget the rocket!" "Make sure you instead to halos."

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Solar Dynamics Observatory--Homepage

Cool movie: SDO destroyed a "Sun Dog"--Science@NASA "

More pictures of the SDO-"Sun Dog" encounter: Romeo Durscher of Stanford, California; Barbara Tomlinson Beach sound, Georgia. by George C. Privon from the University of Virginia.

"Sun Dog" education-Les Cowleys-authoritative Web site "Atmospheric optics"

"* In reference to the statement" Sundogs are formed by plate-shaped ice crystals drift down from the sky.... ", Cowley notes that this can be a simplification."The crystals not always from the sky down drive. They'll get slow down relative to the air currents in the cloud. Half of the time they will be increasing relative to the Earth. "Only a few mm / s is the drift velocity"

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