‘Mesmerizing.’ These rare, electric-blue clouds were captured on camera by NASA.

NASA launched a balloon this summer that captured something scientists called “mesmerizing.”

“On the cusp of our atmosphere live a thin group of seasonal electric blue clouds,” NASA wrote in a report released Sept. 20.

Fifty miles above the Earth’s poles, these “noctilucent” or “polar mesopheric” clouds come together on the tiny remains of meteors in the Earth’s upper atmosphere to create “brilliant blue rippling clouds that are visible just after the Sun sets in polar regions during the summer,” NASA said.

Analyzing these clouds could help scientists “better understand turbulence in the atmosphere, as well as in oceans, lakes and other planetary atmospheres, and may even improve weather forecasting,” NASA said.

“From what we’ve seen so far, we expect to have a really spectacular dataset from this mission,” said Dave Fritts, principal investigator of the mission at Global Atmospheric Technologies and Sciences in Boulder, Colo. “Our cameras were likely able to capture some really interesting events and we hope will provide new insights into these complex dynamics.”

The clouds NASA captured on camera are affected by “atmospheric gravity waves” which are caused by air masses moving in the atmosphere, according to NASA.

And these images are the first time NASA scientists have been able to see that flow of energy in the upper atmosphere.

“At these altitudes you can literally see the gravity waves breaking — like ocean waves on the beach — and cascading to turbulence,” Fritts said in the report.

The study of turbulence experienced by the clouds “will even help improve weather forecast models,” according to NASA.

This story was originally published September 25, 2018 at 4:49 PM with the headline "‘Mesmerizing.’ These rare, electric-blue clouds were captured on camera by NASA.."