photo of supersonic speed

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Robert Roy Britt

Editorial Director

LiveScience.com robert Roy Britt

editorial Director

livescience.com – Tue Jun 30, 9:35 am ET

The breaking of the sound barrier is not just an audible phenomenon. As a new picture from the U.S. military shows, Mach 1 can be quite visual.

This widely circulated new photo shows a Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Alaska June 22, 2009 as it executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

The visual phenomenon, which sometimes but not always accompanies the breaking of the sound barrier, has also been seen with nuclear blasts and just after space shuttles launches, too. A vapor cone was photographed as the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission rocketed skyward in 1969.

The phenomenon is not well studied. Scientists refer to it as a vapor cone, shock collar, or shock egg, and it's thought to be created by what's called a Prandtl-Glauert singularity.

Here's what scientists think happens:

A layer of water droplets gets trapped between two high-pressure surfaces of air. In humid conditions, condensation can gather in the trough between two crests of the sound waves produced by the jet. This effect does not necessarily coincide with the breaking of the sound barrier, although it can
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kewl... how much boost do I need to run to get that?

 
awesome catch with the camera. I have seen this without a bang. I used to work around a lot of different planes. Gets a double take every time..some pilots know when it delays the sound without a bang and you could look someplace else and see no plane..as if it followed it like a ghost. big v8s in the past used to do this, sound barrier must have been the exhaust itself...looking for the car where the sound was is useless...the car is over yonder in another direction . It really is that simple.

 
I've always liked watching footage of the F1 cars at a high-speed track on a humid day, you can see the little trails coming off the end plates of the rear wing. That is happening at less than 200 MPH, so maybe only 55 pounds of boost?

 
Nope, sadly enough.

I was lucky enough to pick up a passenger from the Concorde twice before Sept 11th when it was still flying. Taxied right up to the gate and picked him up after he cleared customs

Saw it take off from JFK a couple of times, quite a sight (and sound)

 
Oh you a funny kid...but I like the fact that you werent on the planet yet when "Top Gun" came out:D

I actually have seen it in a museum, massive

 
The shock collar or vapor cone has been studied since the 50s when John Glen and and the X-planes were being developed. They believe some of the P51 Mustangs may have broken the sound barrier momentarily in some dives at higher altitudes, before the rocket planes and jet planes, but no documentation on this matter until the X projects. They have determined the plane has to have delta style wings so the aircraft can remain partially in the shock collar while flying in the atmosphere or it becomes too unstable to fly at and beyond Mach1. Thus, swept back wings of the Concorde, and the longer trailing edges of wings to the fuselage on fighters and stuff. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. I love that stuff!

 
awesome catch with the camera. I have seen this without a bang. I used to work around a lot of different planes. Gets a double take every time..some pilots know when it delays the sound without a bang and you could look someplace else and see no plane..as if it followed it like a ghost. big v8s in the past used to do this, sound barrier must have been the exhaust itself...looking for the car where the sound was is useless...the car is over yonder in another direction . It really is that simple.
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i'm confused by this. are you sure you aren't just talking about the difference in speed between the speed of light and the speed of sound?

rad, did you go to the off-campus aviation museum at the smithsonian? that place is awesome.

 
That place is awesome, there is a free shuttle there if anyone has a layover in Dulles and wants to see it

 
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