Holy Phaeton, I just lost my post...Argh...
In brief- interesting, provocative at times, tended to concentrate on "glaring" examples,
some were overwhelming in numbers, to where I must consider space toilets, water
discharges, ice from the buildup that occurs early in the mission- i.e when they are beginning to attain extreme altitude, they purge a hydrogen tank and that goes on
draining and builds some ice around the reaction control nozzles (shuttle is loaded with small jets, front and rear)...
At the very end, I think that is what we witness- ice moving off the system as they fire those RCTs...But, the rest of the video is more than I have ever imagined. In terms of
the large, single objects which oscillate, or pulse and glow.
All of those "cosmic sand dollars" I used to think were ice flakes, from liquid discharges.
Now, it seems they present a much more complex range of phenomena.
Gamma, X, and UV are blocked by the upper atmosphere. That is why several platforms
have been sent with shuttles, and larger telescopes (which are too sensitive to point at earth) are sent on expendable launchers. Even smaller units are probably kept on the ISS (we'll leave sounding rockets out of this).
And, there are high-altitude balloons and aircraft which have studied UV reaction chemistry.
As for infrared, it too has been an issue, which has now been overcome. You heard his general thoughts regarding IR, in the thermosphere, which brings me to this. I have an old video clip that he showed, and I believe these objects, in general, are fairly
close to the shuttle, beginning around 10 km. That would still make them fairly good size, but not hugh. I think they are more than a hundred kilometers above the thunderstorms
and lightning, below.
You can look at it. I am busy, but have more to say, later.
STS-80 These are old links. I am just throwing them on here. Please just ignore the term "vortice". They are grabs from the video.
Grabs 1Grabs 2