This seems apropos, given the recent obsession hereabouts with climate-change research. On February 11, 2010, NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory atop an Atlas V rocket, and Barbara Tomlinson made the following video. This is the point in the launch just before the rocket goes supersonic, when it sends out a series of concentric pressure waves that destroy the sun dog in the right side of the frame:

Here’s a longer version (complete with cheesy soundtrack!):

I liked the user comments:

TenRoc382k9 (13 hours ago)
looks kinda fake

Heh. Can’t fool us. Those San Francisco backdrops in “Monk” are obviously real, but this? Give me a break.

Tomlinson found the “fake” comments interesting, too. In fact, she graphed them:

She observes:

My favorite version of Wow! is captainpickard’s, “I’ll have an order of KICK ASS, with a side of FUCK YEAH!” For Fake! I have to compliment stegre for “I have seem (sic) many edited films and this video has definitely been tampered. Your argument is invalid.” It is both arrogant and nonsensical at the same time. Excellent work, stegre.

More discussion at Bad Astronomy: Rocket launch blows away the sky. And at One Astronomer’s Noise: SDO is GO!!!!!, which includes a link to Anna Herbst’s wider-angle video.

Update: Another cool view, this one by Romeo Durscher, including the contrail that followed:

This entry was posted by jbc on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 6:37 am and is filed under net.kooks, science, space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.