NASA rockets create chemical clouds to study jet stream

NORFOLK, Va. -- Milky white chemical clouds were briefly visible in much of the night sky along the Eastern Seaboard yesterday after NASA launched a series of rockets to study the jet stream at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.

The five sounding rockets began blasting off just before 5 a.m. from NASA's Wallops Island facility on the eastern shore of Virginia. The rockets were fired about 80 seconds apart and released a chemical cloud so that scientists could "see" little-understood winds about 65 miles above the Earth's surface. Firing multiple rockets allows scientists to track the high-speed winds over hundreds of miles.

NASA said it received reports that the chemical clouds were visible as far south as Wilmington, N.C.; west to Charleston, W. Va.; and north to Buffalo. The clouds also were visible above major metropolitan areas like Washington and New York.

Data gathered from the experiment should allow scientists to better model the electromagnetic regions of space that can damage satellites and affect radio communications. -- AP