Visible shock wave

[Orange Anchor]

Go to about 1:45 in the video and plan on being surprised.

[YT]SsDEfu8s1Lw[/YT]

 

[stesta5074]

WOW!

 

[Muff3n]

Holy smokes! That is awesome. Great find.

 

[mshunter]

Preatty awsome. Is that from the pressure building in front of the rocket because of it's speed or because of it's sound?

 

[bLizZuE]

Speed.

 

[Jeremy]

Holy crap!

 

[casey]

Preatty awsome. Is that from the pressure building in front of the rocket because of it's speed or because of it's sound?

sound is just pressure perturbations.

 

[JordanD]

That is the coolest thing I've seen....

 

[coa787]

Cool.

 

[Minuteman]

Preatty awsome. Is that from the pressure building in front of the rocket because of it's speed or because of it's sound?

I think what's going on is that the shockwave is changing the local density of air, which changes the direction sunlight is refracted compared to undisturbed air. In turn, the differently-bent light is making lots of small "sundogs" between the local density changes and the observer, rather than between the sun and the observer. :dunno:

 

[ATC RET 2003]

That was neat!

 

[C150J]

Check out the same effect, but with bullets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcfczJJqQXE&feature=related

 

[Skillet]

Amazing.....great post.

 

[Inverted]

uhhh thats bad ass