Noctilucent Clouds Seen From Atlanta Georgia?

Noctilucent clouds are generally only seen just before sunrise or just after sunset, as the sun needs to be below the horizon to light up the mesosphere, up to 50 miles above the earth’s surface (way above the troposphere – where we experience most weather phenomena).

 

They can be present during the day, but we won’t see them, as they’re very thin – we need the contrast of the dark sky and the reflected sunlight to perceive them. The clouds form when water vapor gathers on specks of dust in the mesosphere and freezes, forming ice crystals that scatter the reflected sunlight in a silvery-blue. Generally, noctilucent clouds appear between June and August in the Northern Hemisphere, over the poles and maybe down to a latitude of 45 degrees.

 

However, with the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) NASA satellite, they’ve seen noctilucent clouds further from the poles, though I’m not sure exactly how far (likely not below 40N). The AIM project observed these clouds for ~16 years (ending March 2023 when the battery failed), taking observations to understand whether the noctilucent clouds’ appearance and frequency are related to climate change and what affects their formation. Scientists will be analyzing this data for decades to come!

 

I’ve seen thin streaky cirrus clouds during the early morning hours that appear similar to photos of noctilucent clouds, but I’m at 35 degrees North, so I have never seen noctilucent clouds in person.

 

My next guess would be gas from a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, but it appears that the only launch around that time was late on July 11 from Vandenberg (Starlink) – launching at about 10:35 pm your time. The other launch I found was a Chinese rocket that failed on July 10, but couldn’t find further details and I’m not sure you would be able to see any remnants of that from your location.

 

Did you happen to take a photo of the clouds?