Twilight phenomenon
weather phenomenon associated with rocketry
Twilight phenomenon is produced when exhaust particles from missile or rocket propellant left in the vapor trail of a launch vehicle condense, freeze, and then expand in the less dense upper atmosphere. The exhaust plume, which is suspended against a dark sky, is then illuminated by reflective high-altitude sunlight through dispersion, which produces a spectacular, colorful effect when seen at ground level. A similar effect is the space jellyfish.
The phenomenon typically occurs with launches that take place either 30 to 60 minutes before sunrise or after sunset when a booster rocket or missile rises out of the darkness and into a sunlit area, relative to an observer's perspective on the ground. Because rocket trails extend high into the stratosphere and mesosphere, they catch high-altitude sunlight long after the sun has set on the ground. The small particles in the expanding exhaust plume or "cloud" diffract sunlight and produce the rose, blue, green and orange colors—much like a dispersive prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow).
The effect may also be seen when the second stage fires or releases unburned fuel. This can occur at higher altitudes and be seen across a much wider area.
The exhaust plume may also take on a corkscrew appearance as it is whipped around by upper-level wind currents. It is typically seen within two to three minutes after a launch has occurred.
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This entry incorporates text from “Twilight phenomenon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.