The blue spiral appeared on Sunday night sky over New Zealand.
New Zealand star observers were struck by strange spiral light formations in the night sky on Sunday night. The photos were widely shared on social media, and many New Zealanders compared them to a kind of “wormhole”. But experts said the “crazy-looking clouds” were caused by the Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Globalstar DM15 satellite.
The extraordinary sight was first captured by residents of Nelson, a town on the North Island of New Zealand, and was visible 750 km south of Stewart Island.
“Does anyone know if there was a satellite orbiting NZ tonight or maybe an Australian satellite, I saw something like the picture I posted around 7:20 pm tonight looking slightly west at a great height Rangiora Canterbury “, posted Facebook user Inch Justin in Astronomy to the New Zealand group.
“The image I uploaded is just an example of what I saw. I couldn’t take a picture of it, I just grabbed my binoculars and saw what appeared to be a satellite in the middle of the spiral north at high speed. knots, “the user said.
Users flooded the comment group. “Yeah, a lot of us saw it from Hawke’s Bay, near the tail of Canis major, and then we moved northeast,” one user commented.
“It’s definitely great,” said another.
Professor Richard Easther, a physicist at the University of Auckland, explained the reason for the phenomenon. Clouds of this nature were sometimes produced when a rocket was carrying a satellite into orbit, he told The Guardian.
“When the propeller is ejected from the back, you have what is essentially water and carbon dioxide, which briefly forms a cloud in the sunlit space,” Professor Easther said. “The geometry of the satellite’s orbit and also the way we sit in relation to the sun, this combination of things was the right one to produce these completely absurd-looking clouds that were visible from the South Island. “.
The New Plymouth Astronomical Society said on Facebook that “most likely it was a” fuel spill “or an” escape channel “from a SpaceX rocket launch,” since it was previously they have seen similar effects.
According to Professor Easther, the rocket in question was the Falcon 9, which SpaceX used to send a satellite into low Earth orbit on Sunday.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk congratulated the Falcon team on the launches. “Congratulations to the SpaceX Falcon team for running 3 flawless launches in 2 days!” he said on Twitter.