Northern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.
The cause early Saturday morning was a little more mundane than an alien invasion or the appearance of a portal to the far reaches of the universe. It was simply excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral appeared.
Sometimes rockets have fuel that needs to be jettisoned, said space physicist Don Hampton, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. "When they do that at high altitudes, that fuel turns into ice," he said. "And if it happens to be in the sunlight, when you're in the darkness on the ground, you can see it as a sort of big cloud, and sometimes it's swirly."The appearance of the swirl was caught in time-lapse on the Geophysical Institute's all-sky camera and shared widely. "It created a bit of an internet storm with that spiral," Hampton said.
In January, another spiral was seen, this time over Hawaii's Big Island. A camera at the summit of Mauna Kea, outside the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru telescope, captured a spiral swirling through the night sky. Researchers have said it was from the launch of a military GPS satellite that lifted off earlier on a SpaceX rocket in Florida.
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Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night skyNorthern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes
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Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night skyNorthern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes. The cause early Saturday morning was a little more mundane than an alien invasion or the appearance of a portal to the far reaches of the universe. It was simply excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral appeared. The fuel turned to ice, and then the water vapor reflected the sunlight in the atmosphere, causing the spiral to be visible for those in the dark below.
Leer más »
Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night skyNorthern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.
Leer más »
Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night skyNorthern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.
Leer más »
Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night skyNorthern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.
Leer más »