A new study, funded in part by the Naval Research Laboratory and NASA, reports that exhaust from the space shuttle can create high-altitude clouds over Antarctica mere days following launch, providing valuable insight to global transport processes in the lower thermosphere. The same study also finds that the shuttle’s main engine exhaust plume carries small quantities of iron that can be observed from the ground, half a world away.
– Courtesy: SpaceDaily (Washington DC Jul 07, 2005)