The launch has created noctilucent clouds over Japan

Thursday, January 18, the Japanese aerospace exploration Agency launched a small rocket from the space center Uchinoura. The result was a magnificent sight, which was recorded by Japanese artist and photographer Kagaya, — exhaust gases of the rocket glowing in the starry pre-dawn sky over the Pacific ocean.

"I watched the launch from the island of Okinawa and captured it on camera Sony α7RIII, "says Kagaya, who posted video of the event on YouTube.

New Japanese rocket "Epsilon" is relatively small, designed to launch scientific satellites with minimum cost. This time Epsilon has launched into orbit a satellite to monitor the Earth ASNARO-2. The unit will operate on solar cells and carry a large antenna, X-band — synthetic aperture radar capable of taking pictures of our planet's surface with a resolution of 1 meter.

Shortly after launch over the West of Japan there was a silver, or luminous night clouds as ice crystals formed in the aerodynamic trail rocket, captured the rays of the rising sun. These clouds form naturally around Earth's poles, but very rare at lower latitudes, for example, in Japan. In polar regions, noctilucent clouds are seeded by meteoric smoke particles, which freeze due to the fact that the natural water vapor drifts up to the edge of space.

This spectacle over Japan have created water vapor in the exhaust gases of the rocket, mixed with the aerosols of solid fuel.

Noctilucent clouds (and man-made and natural) are very interesting to scientists because it helps to learn about the far-correlations and climate change in the Earth's atmosphere.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»