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Early risers across much of Arizona were treated to pink skies as a Nasa research rocket launched into the atmosphere.

The rocket blasted off from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 5:26 am local time (12.26 GMT).

A bright pink cloud was visible for the next 20 minutes as sunlight hit the rocket's vapour trail. 

Early risers across Arizona were treated to pink skies as a Nasa research rocket launched into the atmosphere. A bright pink cloud was visible for the next 20 minutes as sunlight hit the rocket's vapour trail

News outlets in Arizona reported that residents in Phoenix, Tucson, Lake Havasu City and Flagstaff reported seeing the pink cloud. 

The Terrier-Black Brant rocket carried an atmospheric-research payload designed by scientists and engineers at a space-vehicles research lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.

The white 'tracer cloud' was made up of trimethyl aluminum, and the red cloud, consisted of lithium vapour.

White Sands officials said the rocket's release of vapour into the near-vacuum of space was intended to help study processes responsible for the formation of the Earth's ionosphere. 

This photo shows a Nasa Terrier-Black Brant research rocket that launched from White Sands Missile Range

White Sands officials said the rocket's release of vapour into the near-vacuum of space was intended to help study processes responsible for the formation of the Earth's ionosphere

That's a region of space where electrons naturally separate from molecules and float separately to create an ionised gas.

After releasing the rocket, researchers then visually observed the movement of the vapour as it traces the motions of background environment.

This  will help scientists better understand and predict the electrical storms in Earth's upper atmosphere.

GPS signal delays caused by activity in the ionosphere are measured in metres, with large delays being on the order of 40 metres, says Lawrence Sparks, senior technologist with the Ionospheric and Atmospheric Remote Sensing Group at JPL. 

While it doesn't take long for signals traveling at the speed of light to cover 40 metres, he says, even a delay of a small fraction of a second can make a significant difference in determining the position of a fast-moving plane. 

'It is crucial to bound the positioning errors accurately for landing an aircraft safely in fog, for example,' he said.

Nasa likens this technique to injecting a small, harmless dye into a river or stream, to study its currents, eddies, and other motions.

The rocket was provided under a Department of Defense test program at Kirtland, while a Nasa rocket program provided technical expertise for its assembly and other parts of the mission.

The launch was postponed from Monday because of weather. 

A similar experiment took place last year over the Marshall Islands (pictured).  After releasing the rocket in space, researchers then visually observed the subsequent movement of the vapour as it traces the motions of background environment

The rocket blasted off from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 5:26 am local time (12.26 GMT)

When high frequency radio waves, such as those used for the Global Positioning System (GPS) travel through a disturbed layer of Earth's electrically charged atmosphere, the ionosphere, they can be disrupted