ORLANDO, Fla. – Early Wednesday morning, SpaceX launched another round of Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral.
These morning rocket launches, just before sunrise, tend to catch the eyes of many across Central Florida because of the clouds leftover after the rocket heads into space.
Celena Garcia
Another day in paradise
These type of clouds have been nicknamed “light up clouds” due to the fact that the clouds appear to brightly glow in the middle of the dark night sky.
This is due to the lingering exhaust from the rocket. The water vapor within the exhaust freezes into tiny ice crystals in the higher elevations where the airmass is much colder.
These ice crystals are suspended high enough in the sky to catch the reflection of the sunlight that still is below the horizon to those on the ground. This gives the illusion that the clouds are glowing in the dark.
This is called the “twilight phenomenon” with the clouds termed “noctilucent clouds.”
While natural noctilucent clouds are quite rare across the country, we tend to see them more often in Central Florida because of those predawn rocket launches.
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