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Missile Test Creates Huge Expanding Halo of Light Over Hawaii

Posted by samzenpus on from the looks-like-progress dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "A Minuteman III missile launch from California early Wednesday morning created a weird, expanding halo of light seen from the CFHT observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea. The third stage of the missile has ports that open and dump fuel into the near-vacuum. This cloud expands rapidly as a spherical shell, shock-exciting the air molecules and causing them to glow, creating the bizarre effect."

2 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Is this how they are covering up airbursts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought they outlawed above ground nuclear testing decades ago. This is a pretty obvious cover up of a small nuke and I doubt this would fool anyone.

  2. Anyone wanna bet? by Smerta · · Score: 5, Funny

    North Korea's about to follow. They've got their best Photoshop team on the job right now!