NASA sent a balloon to observe blue clouds "electric", and they are safe – BGR

We are used to NASA putting beautiful pictures of distant objects in space, but its most recent observations are much closer to us. In a new message on its website, NASA reveals the results of a mission conducted in early July of this year, which saw a large balloon rise 50 miles into the sky to study the clouds.

The target of the mission was a cloud band known as the PMC. These "polar mospheric clouds" are thin and wispy, but they may contain clues that may reveal the mechanisms that control turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere.

"From what we've seen up to here, we expect to have a truly spectacular data set of this mission," said Dave Fritts, principal investigator of the PMC Turbo mission – the one with the big balloon – in a statement. "Our cameras have probably been able to capture some really interesting events and we hope they will provide new insights into these complex dynamics."

The powerful observation tools that NASA sent to the sky have captured an absolutely incredible amount of data. NASA says the ball broke a huge 6 million images during his flight, and that he filled 120 terabytes of storage. It's a lot of clouds pictures. NASA Goddard has published a nice little explanatory video on YouTube that offers an intensive course on why this type of research is conducted, as you can see above.

This information will help scientists better understand both the turbulence in the upper atmosphere of our planet and the nature of turbulence in fluids elsewhere in the universe. NASA says it could even help make weather forecasts more accurate.

"Understanding a wide range of processes in near-Earth space – including their interaction with the atmosphere and weather – is a key component of NASA's heliophysics research, which employs a comprehensive set of satellites and of perspective instruments, "says NASA.

Image Source: NASA / PMC Turbo / Joy Ng