Noctilucent clouds may have been first *recorded* as being distinct from other types of cloud in 1885, but it is illogical to infer that they cannot have existed prior to the first recording. (Although there has been a secular increase in frequency of reports since the 1950s.) Anyway, if they occured in 1885, they cannot possibly be something "new" that was created by rocketlaunches!

The phrase "glows at night" is singularly misleading. For a start, noctilucent clouds do not occur at night, but at twilight. The geometry is such that they can only be visible when the Sun is between 6 and 16 degrees below the horizon (twilight ends when the Sun is below 18 deg). Secondly they are visible by virtue of the fact that they reflect sunlight; they do not, of themselves, glow). This is why they are usually only visible in high latitudes and during summer.

Lastly, the piece you quoted ignores, without giving any reason for doing so, the "conventional" explanation, i.e. that they are composed of (water) ice condensed on solid nuclei of meteoric dust.

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Stephen