A spokesperson for Nasa told DailyMail.com that while the clouds were visible by many, camera phones are unable to capture them well.

He added that Nasa will release more photos tomorrow.

Sherree Ross Setzer wrote on Nasa's Facebook page: 'Saw it in from Stafford, Virginia! The chemical release was fascinating. We thought it looked like a space portal opening from a science fiction movie.'

Nasa regularly conducts launches such as this to study the movement of ionised and neutral particles in the upper atmosphere.

The launches usually last anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes.

The chemicals released by the Black Brant sounding rocket allowed scientists to better spot clouds as the Earth's magnetic field pushes them around the ionosphere.

The ionosphere, which begins above 60 miles above the ground, is a layer of charged particles surrounding our planet.

It serves as the medium through which high frequency radio waves, including those sent down to the ground by global positioning system satellites, travel.

The rocket helped collect data on the charged particles as well as winds of neutral particles that sweep through the lower ionosphere and how each affects the other, ultimately causing these dynamo currents.

The variations matter because all of our communications and GPS satellites send signals through the ionosphere.

A disturbed ionosphere translates to disturbed signals, so scientists want to know just what causes the ionosphere to behave in specific ways.

Around six minutes after launch, the sounding rocket deployed four sub-payloads containing mixtures of barium and strontium.