'Sky Halo' Spotted Over Hawaii

A strange expanding halo of light captured by a webcam outside an observatory in Hawaii left puzzled astronomers turning to "Citizen Science" for help. Users of the Starship Asterisk determined that a Minuteman III missile had been launched from California the same night and was almost certainly responsible for the phenomenon, Discover reports. The "halo" effect was apparently caused by a charge released minutes after take-off when the missile was above most of the Earth's atmosphere. (More astronomer stories.)