Apod 3.6 Exceptional Rocket Waves Destroy Sun Dog

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, designed to perpetually observe the sun, launched a few weeks ago. The blurry image of the rocket which carried SDO can be seen near the center of this image, surrounded by unexplained shock waves. There has been much debate over the origin of these ripples and the leading hypothesis is that they were caused by a sonic boom that occurred when the shuttle broke the sound barrier. Also to the right of the image is a sun dog. Sun dogs are extra images of the Sun caused by falling ice-crystals in the Earth's atmosphere. After the ripples had passed, the sun dog disappeared. When the waves hit the ice crystals, they were rearranged, thus destroying the sun dog. It is still under question why other rockets do not produce as noticeable shock waves.