[Phys-L] Re: Light from fireball visible?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 20:28  -0600 2/9/06, Brian Whatcott wrote:
> Noctilucent clouds occur at heights of 85km.
> They are best seen when the Sun is a few degrees below the horizon.
>
> An intense light source might (possibly?) illuminate such high ice clouds
> so that the flash would be visible at places 100's of miles distant; places
> where sunrise has yet to take place.
Good point. I hadn't thought about such clouds, but given that one
time zone is approx. 1700 km, and Shanghai is only 800 km from
Nagasaki, and given the time of detonation at Nagasaki, the sun
should have been well risen in Shanghai by that time, so I doubt that
a reflection would have been sufficiently brighter than the
background to be noticed, even if it could be detected. In fact, it
looks like the sun would have been more nearly behind those clouds,
making seeing the reflection from the ground even more difficult.

Hugh
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Hugh Haskell
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<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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