APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Post Reply
User avatar
APOD Robot
Otto Posterman
Posts: 5344
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
Contact:

APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue May 31, 2022 4:05 am

Image Rocket Transits Rippling Sun

Explanation: The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. Such was the case last month when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows beyond its projection onto the distant Sun, the rocket itself appears oddly jagged, and the Sun's lower edge shows peculiar drip-like ripples. The physical cause of all of these effects is pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air deflecting sunlight less strongly than pockets relatively cool or compressed air: refraction. Unaware of the Earthly show, active sunspot region 3014 -- on the upper left -- slowly crosses the Sun.

<< Previous APOD This Day in APOD Next APOD >>

User avatar
orin stepanek
Plutopian
Posts: 8200
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: Nebraska

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by orin stepanek » Tue May 31, 2022 1:41 pm

FalconSun_Cain_960.jpg
The sun looks a fuzzy tennis ball! :lol2:
SpaceXFalconHeavy11Apr1024.jpg
Now that is fire power! :mrgreen:
.jpg
.jpg (10.33 KiB) Viewed 6435 times
We seen these guys before! :wink:
Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13372
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by Ann » Tue May 31, 2022 3:20 pm


+


+





=




I tried to place the plus signs between the images so that the sequence would be, burnt-out matchstick + yellow disk + black background = today's APOD.

Ann

I guess there is a bit more to today's APOD than a burnt-out matchstick, a yellow disk and a black background, eh?
Color Commentator

Wadsworth
Science Officer
Posts: 131
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2006 3:12 pm
Location: TX

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by Wadsworth » Tue May 31, 2022 4:41 pm

The sperm swimming towards the egg.
Are we fertilizing space?

m.clayton

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by m.clayton » Tue May 31, 2022 6:10 pm

Is anyone else reminded of an egg and sperm?

hubert@hubwest.com

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by hubert@hubwest.com » Tue May 31, 2022 6:36 pm

The mostly vertical ripples at the bottom limb of the Sun are interesting. My guess is that these are caused by sound waves from the rocket. These would make somewhat cylindrical shock waves surrounding the rocket's path, leading to the vertical structures seen in the image.

User avatar
johnnydeep
Commodore
Posts: 2781
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:57 pm

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by johnnydeep » Tue May 31, 2022 6:44 pm

hubert@hubwest.com wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 6:36 pm The mostly vertical ripples at the bottom limb of the Sun are interesting. My guess is that these are caused by sound waves from the rocket. These would make somewhat cylindrical shock waves surrounding the rocket's path, leading to the vertical structures seen in the image.
Not sure about that. If it's sound, why aren't there ripples at the top of the Sun as well?
--
"To B̬̻̋̚o̞̮̚̚l̘̲̀᷾d̫͓᷅ͩḷ̯᷁ͮȳ͙᷊͠ Go......Beyond The F͇̤i̙̖e̤̟l̡͓d͈̹s̙͚ We Know."{ʲₒʰₙNYᵈₑᵉₚ}

User avatar
owlice
Guardian of the Codes
Posts: 8406
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:18 pm
Location: Washington, DC

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by owlice » Tue May 31, 2022 7:05 pm

carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit
Robbing us all of the night sky.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13372
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by Ann » Tue May 31, 2022 7:10 pm



Since everybody is so interested (yes, I know you are :wink:) I can inform you that the dominant wavelength of the Sun in today's APOD is most likely 593 nm, ████, corresponding to RGB values of R = 255, G = 213 and B = 0.

Of course the Sun is nowhere near as yellow-orange as that. Let's compare the Sun with Capella, the luminary of constellation Auriga:

Auriga constellation author unknown .png

In the above picture (and I'm sorry I don't know the name of the author), Capella is located at far left. Does it look yellow to you? Yes, I admit, it does look yellow-white, and so it should, because it is yellower than the Sun. The B-V index of Capella is + 0.795, whereas the B-V index of the Sun is + 0.656. And the larger the B-V index is, the yellower (or even redder) is the star. So the Sun is whiter than Capella, and Capella isn't very yellow!


This may be the color of Capella: ████

And some may argue that it is the color of the Sun as well. Whatever. :wink:

Ann
Color Commentator

User avatar
VictorBorun
Captain
Posts: 1025
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:25 pm
Contact:

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by VictorBorun » Tue May 31, 2022 8:25 pm

Ann wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 7:10 pm Since everybody is so interested (yes, I know you are :wink:) I can inform you that the dominant wavelength of the Sun in today's APOD is most likely 593 nm, ████, corresponding to RGB values of R = 255, G = 213 and B = 0.
Of course the Sun is nowhere near as yellow-orange as that.
the posted pic is more about the sky than the space.
The disk of the sun is low here so the blue is scattered to sky dayshine (black at this 1/32000 sec exposure) and the disk is tinted.
However the disk of the sun is redder at edges where the photosphere is seen as thicker and its redder outer layer is less transparent

By the way I take it the exhaust is hot and low-density, bending light like a concave lens and thus looks black.
At an ordinary exposure the exhaust is not black:
Image

User avatar
MarkBour
Subtle Signal
Posts: 1377
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2013 2:44 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by MarkBour » Tue May 31, 2022 9:38 pm

johnnydeep wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 6:44 pm
hubert@hubwest.com wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 6:36 pm The mostly vertical ripples at the bottom limb of the Sun are interesting. My guess is that these are caused by sound waves from the rocket. These would make somewhat cylindrical shock waves surrounding the rocket's path, leading to the vertical structures seen in the image.
Not sure about that. If it's sound, why aren't there ripples at the top of the Sun as well?
Because the rocket is moving rapidly? If it is supersonic, there could not be any sound waves above it. Even if subsonic, but fast, the sound waves would be behind more than in front.
Mark Goldfain

hubert@hubwest.com

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by hubert@hubwest.com » Tue May 31, 2022 10:04 pm

no ripples at the top because the craft is already supersonic

User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18112
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:35 am

hubert@hubwest.com wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 10:04 pm no ripples at the top because the craft is already supersonic
My first thought, as well. But no. The photographer was about 20 km from the launch, and the Sun was 5° above the horizon. So the vehicle altitude was 1.7 km, at which point its speed was 500 km/h (139 m/s). It became supersonic (1100 km/h, 305 m/s) when it reached an altitude of 8 km.
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

User avatar
johnnydeep
Commodore
Posts: 2781
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:57 pm

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by johnnydeep » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:31 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:35 am
hubert@hubwest.com wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 10:04 pm no ripples at the top because the craft is already supersonic
My first thought, as well. But no. The photographer was about 20 km from the launch, and the Sun was 5° above the horizon. So the vehicle altitude was 1.7 km, at which point its speed was 500 km/h (139 m/s). It became supersonic (1100 km/h, 305 m/s) when it reached an altitude of 8 km.
So even if the rocket was not supersonic yet, would the fact that the sound waves are more compressed at the top than the bottom explain the lack of ripples at the top of the sun?
--
"To B̬̻̋̚o̞̮̚̚l̘̲̀᷾d̫͓᷅ͩḷ̯᷁ͮȳ͙᷊͠ Go......Beyond The F͇̤i̙̖e̤̟l̡͓d͈̹s̙͚ We Know."{ʲₒʰₙNYᵈₑᵉₚ}

User avatar
MarkBour
Subtle Signal
Posts: 1377
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2013 2:44 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by MarkBour » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:49 pm

johnnydeep wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:31 pm
Chris Peterson wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:35 am
hubert@hubwest.com wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 10:04 pm no ripples at the top because the craft is already supersonic
My first thought, as well. But no. The photographer was about 20 km from the launch, and the Sun was 5° above the horizon. So the vehicle altitude was 1.7 km, at which point its speed was 500 km/h (139 m/s). It became supersonic (1100 km/h, 305 m/s) when it reached an altitude of 8 km.
So even if the rocket was not supersonic yet, would the fact that the sound waves are more compressed at the top than the bottom explain the lack of ripples at the top of the sun?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtzG-l7lEfk
Is a lengthy old film on the sound barrier. Mainly, it shows the effect that I guessed might have been happening in the APOD -- the sound waves not being able to get much ahead of the rocket's nozzle.

And similarly, from LIVESCIENCE.COM:
https://www.livescience.com/63030-rocke ... n-dog.html
Despite what the video's title says, the rocket here is not quite traveling at supersonic speeds; if it was, the vehicle's sound waves would be falling behind the rocket in a cone shape, not blasting out in front of it like a ripple.
Here's a great photo that is similar to the APOD in a way:
Capture2.png
https://petapixel.com/2022/05/16/navy-f ... -of-sound/

Chris determined that the rocket was only moving at about mach 0.5 at the time of the photograph.

When I re-examine the image of this APOD, I would say that the waves (seen as refraction of the edge of the solar disk) are larger and more pronounced below the rocket's nozzle, but they do appear somewhat above it, diminishing in wavelength and in amplitude, nearly to the top of the Sun.

An alternative thought (perhaps this is what you were thinking) is that it's more like the wake of a boat and is something spreading more slowly than the speed of sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95sQcSulRFM
As the narration for the above indicates, the waves in a boat's wake are much slower than the speed of sound in water. But they're also not compression waves.

The wake of a submarine would be a better match, since the rocket is surrounded in 3D by the air. Surely the rocket is producing a wake of some sort. But in the air, any such waves are surely compression waves, so I think that once moving on their own, they always travel at the speed of sound. As this little article seems to imply:
https://howthingsfly.si.edu/aerodynamics/waves-air

Two notes that I think are correct, but that I also don't know much about: (1) The molecules in the air that are passing the compression waves on are not moving the same as the wave itself. (2) A wavefront can progress at a different speed than the speed of the wave itself, depending on how it is measured.
Mark Goldfain

User avatar
johnnydeep
Commodore
Posts: 2781
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:57 pm

Re: APOD: Rocket Transits Rippling Sun (2022 May 31)

Post by johnnydeep » Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:43 pm

MarkBour wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:49 pm
johnnydeep wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:31 pm
Chris Peterson wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:35 am

My first thought, as well. But no. The photographer was about 20 km from the launch, and the Sun was 5° above the horizon. So the vehicle altitude was 1.7 km, at which point its speed was 500 km/h (139 m/s). It became supersonic (1100 km/h, 305 m/s) when it reached an altitude of 8 km.
So even if the rocket was not supersonic yet, would the fact that the sound waves are more compressed at the top than the bottom explain the lack of ripples at the top of the sun?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtzG-l7lEfk
Is a lengthy old film on the sound barrier. Mainly, it shows the effect that I guessed might have been happening in the APOD -- the sound waves not being able to get much ahead of the rocket's nozzle.

And similarly, from LIVESCIENCE.COM:
https://www.livescience.com/63030-rocke ... n-dog.html
Despite what the video's title says, the rocket here is not quite traveling at supersonic speeds; if it was, the vehicle's sound waves would be falling behind the rocket in a cone shape, not blasting out in front of it like a ripple.
Here's a great photo that is similar to the APOD in a way:

Capture2.png

https://petapixel.com/2022/05/16/navy-f ... -of-sound/

Chris determined that the rocket was only moving at about mach 0.5 at the time of the photograph.

When I re-examine the image of this APOD, I would say that the waves (seen as refraction of the edge of the solar disk) are larger and more pronounced below the rocket's nozzle, but they do appear somewhat above it, diminishing in wavelength and in amplitude, nearly to the top of the Sun.

An alternative thought (perhaps this is what you were thinking) is that it's more like the wake of a boat and is something spreading more slowly than the speed of sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95sQcSulRFM
As the narration for the above indicates, the waves in a boat's wake are much slower than the speed of sound in water. But they're also not compression waves.

The wake of a submarine would be a better match, since the rocket is surrounded in 3D by the air. Surely the rocket is producing a wake of some sort. But in the air, any such waves are surely compression waves, so I think that once moving on their own, they always travel at the speed of sound. As this little article seems to imply:
https://howthingsfly.si.edu/aerodynamics/waves-air

Two notes that I think are correct, but that I also don't know much about: (1) The molecules in the air that are passing the compression waves on are not moving the same as the wave itself. (2) A wavefront can progress at a different speed than the speed of the wave itself, depending on how it is measured.
Thanks, Mark.
--
"To B̬̻̋̚o̞̮̚̚l̘̲̀᷾d̫͓᷅ͩḷ̯᷁ͮȳ͙᷊͠ Go......Beyond The F͇̤i̙̖e̤̟l̡͓d͈̹s̙͚ We Know."{ʲₒʰₙNYᵈₑᵉₚ}

Post Reply