NASA seeded a cloud high in the night sky Saturday night using a Black Brant XII rocket. The rocket’s 4th stage released exhaust gases at around 278 kilometres, where they created a short-lived artificial cloud which reflected sunlight and was visible for hundreds of kilometres up and down the east coast of the US.

The space agency regularly observes naturally-occurring cases of noctilucent clouds using its AIM satellite, according to Space.com. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Department of Defense’s Space Test Program managed this weekend’s Controlled Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE), which was the first man-made noctilucent cloud.

NASA Watch has a roundup of coverage, noting bitterly that NASA’s public affairs team didn’t make it easy to watch the early evening launch, which was delayed without warning from Tuesday to Saturday. Many of the news reports reflect how poorly prepared the media were to cover this: not even Space.com was able to get a photo or quote an outside expert for context. Other outlets tended to go for the local angle, citing local meterologists or news bureaus, many of which got calls from concerned and confused citizens. NASA Watch wrote “this was a chance for MILLIONS of people to share in what NASA does in an almost primal fashion – a beautiful apparition in the evening sky.”

One photographer managed to catch it while trying to take photos of airplanes: here. And there is a fairly clear 2-minute video here.

Enthusiasts photograph natural noctilucent clouds here and here. Why don’t they have Saturday’s cloud yet?