If you usually watch the skies to contemplate the infinite mysteries of the cosmos, you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a shooting star or even, if you head to a far northern part of the planet, the chance to see the stunning northern lights. But some amateurs in Alaska observing this curious luminescent phenomenon had the chance to see something even more unusual.
While watching the northern lights, they could see how, suddenly, a mysterious light blue spiral appeared for a few minutes in the middle of the sky, accompanying the auroras.
According to The Guardian, SpaceX, the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is responsible for this creation. The excess fuel of a rocket of the company, launched from California just three hours earlier, was what caused the appearance of this beautiful spiral, which merged with the aurora borealis.
Don Hampton, a space physicist and research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, states that sometimes it is necessary to dispose of rocket fuel. “When you do it at high altitude, that fuel turns to ice. And if it happens to be in sunlight, when you’re in the dark on the ground, you can see it as kind of a big cloud, and sometimes it swirls around,” he said. The scientist also claimed to have seen several such events on three occasions, which are not very common.
The Geophysical Institute’s panoramic camera captured in time-lapse the appearance of this striking spiral in the night sky, and it quickly spread on social networks. “That spiral caused a storm on the Internet,” Hampton explains. Photos and videos of the phenomenon were also uploaded by aurora borealis watchers in the area.
SpaceX’s rocket lifted off with the aim of launching 25 satellites into orbit. Just this week, the company tried to put into orbit its colossal Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever created by man, but it finally had to be postponed due to technical problems. The new launch is scheduled for Thursday, April 20.
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