The Charged Aerosol Release Experiment also known as CARE, is a project run by NASA which will use a rocket to release dust in the upper atmosphere to form a dusty plasma in space. The clouds thus generated are intended to simulate naturally occurring phenomena called

noctilucent clouds Noctilucent clouds (NLCs), or night shining clouds, are tenuous cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere of Earth. When viewed from space, they are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), detectable as a diffuse scattering layer of water ice ...

, which are the highest clouds in the atmosphere. The CARE experiment is intended to create an artificial dust layer at the boundary of space in a controlled sense, in order to "allow scientists to study different aspects of it, the turbulence generated on the inside, the distribution of dust particles and such." The dust cloud is generated using the Nihka motor dust generator. The dust cloud is composed of

aluminum oxide Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly ...

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...

hydrogen chloride The Chemical compound, compound hydrogen chloride has the chemical formula and as such is a hydrogen halide. At room temperature, it is a colorless gas, which forms white fumes of hydrochloric acid upon contact with atmospheric water vapor. Hyd ...

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

, and

nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...

, as well as smaller amounts of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

, monatomic

chlorine Chlorine is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between ...

, and monatomic hydrogen. According to NASA, Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals (SHIMMER ) instrument will track the CARE dust cloud for days or even months. The SHIMMER instrument has previously viewed natural noctilucent clouds for the past two years. The CARE will be the first space viewing of an artificial noctilucent cloud. The rocket was set to launch between 7:30 and 7:57 EDT on Tuesday September 14, 2009, from NASA's

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk, VA, Norfolk. The facility is operated ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. On September 16, 2015, a Black Brant XI sounding rocket was launched from Andoya, Norway and carried 37 rocket motors and a multi-instrument daughter payload into the ionosphere to study the generation of plasma wave electric fields and ionospheric density disturbances by the high-speed injection of dust particles. A primary sensor for the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE II) was the two SuperDARN CUTLASS radars that view the ocean north of Norway. The experiment gained recognition from the Guiness World Records for firing the most rocket engines (44) in a single flight.

References

External links

Night Time Artificial Cloud Study Using NASA Sounding Rocket
, NASA
An Update on theCharged Aerosol Release ExperimentCARE
Cloud types {{Cloud-stub

See also

References

External links