r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/InsaneMocktail • Sep 08 '26

Video University of Waterloo Students Launch Rocket Breaking World Record

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u/nm9899 Sep 08 '26

Very impressive, still only 20% of the way to space. Crazy perspective at this scale

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u/tonyhart7 Sep 08 '26

its only 20% ????? I swear the video got to atmospher already

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u/Playful_Letter_2632 Sep 08 '26

The view starts looking like space a lot before the official space boundary altitude. This is the view from the Lockheed U-2 which is the highest altitude plane used today. It flies slightly higher than what the university achieved at 21 km

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u/jzillacon Sep 08 '26

Yep, because most of what we see of the atmosphere is really just the bottom two layers. Vast majority of clouds can only form in the troposphere and none to my knowledge form above the stratosphere, and at those altitudes the atmosphere is too thin to cause significant light scattering to give its blue colour. But the atmosphere is still there even if it's too thin to see easily.

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u/big_duo3674 Sep 09 '26

Actually, noctilucent clouds form in the mesosphere