Optical phenomena in the atmosphere caused by powerful rocket launches

The results of observations of the optical effects in the atmosphere, which were made mainly by means of all-sky cameras in northwest Russia and Scand inavia are presented in the paper. There were six of artificial optical eff ects observed during 10 years observations simultaneously from two or three stations. One of the cases was registered by a TV camera on Heiss Island ( Franz-Joseph Land) and these observations allowed assumptions to be made on the volumetrical shape of the phenomena. It was assumed to have a torus-li ke form, and the luminosity was caused dy Rayleigh scattering of sunlight b y particles, which formed a gas and dust cloud during the launch of a rocke t. Observations from distant points were used to make triangulation measure ments. It was shown that the all observed phenomena had both common and ori ginal features. The altitudes of luminosity for different cases varied from 230 to 1080 km. The clouds represented rapid horizontally expanding circul ar objects with the front edge propagation velocity 3-7 km s(-1). Diametric al sizes of luminous clouds in some cases exceeded 1600 km at later stages of their development. The possibility of observations of such type phenomen a depends very much on sunlight conditions, direction of launch trajectory and weather conditions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.