Photos of monstrous cloud are real and NASA says it was created to solve a mystery

NASA says “strange things happen in Earth’s atmosphere at high latitudes” and an example was shared by the agency on Facebook: A multi-colored cloud that resembled a giant alien jellyfish.

It appeared Dec. 1 over the Norwegian and Greenland seas (north of Norway), and was the result of a NASA CREX-2 mission “to figure out what’s going on in this unusual region of the atmosphere.”

The rocket ejected “20 soda can-sized canisters” at a height of 392 miles, giving birth to the monstrosity. NASA called it an example of doing research “in style.”

“The canisters are timed to rupture at different altitudes,” NASA explained.

“When they burst, they’ll release vapor tracers — particles often found in firework displays which glow by scattering sunlight or upon exposure to oxygen — in a three-dimensional grid in the sky. The wind will paint the sky with these glowing clouds, revealing how air moves in this unusual section of the atmosphere.”

The rocket was launched at 3:25 a.m. EST from Andøya Space Center in Norway, and NASA says it appears all 20 canisters performed as expected.

Scientists were targeting a mysterious area known as the polar cusp — “a funnel-shaped gap in Earth’s magnetic field that allows solar winds direct access to Earth’s atmosphere.”

It came to the attention of NASA after scientists realized spacecraft passing through the cusp tend to slow down. That’s because the air is 1.5 times “denser than other air at that altitude.”

However, no one knows how it happens or why, NASA says.

“When spacecraft travel through this region around 250 miles above Earth, they experience a space-like ‘speed bump’ due to higher air density,” NASA says.

“The CREX-2 mission hopes to answer what invisible force is supporting the extra mass within the cusp. The mission is designed to measure the numerous factors that could potentially explain how the cusp’s dense air stays suspended.”

Possible explanations involve “electric and magnetic effects in the ionosphere,” scientists say.

This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 6:37 AM with the headline "Photos of monstrous cloud are real and NASA says it was created to solve a mystery."