Space Curiosity: The Escape of One of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Rockets leaves a strange blue spiral in the night sky over New Zealand
- The fuel spill of one of Elon Musk’s space rockets lit up the sky over New Zealand
- When the rocket spun to ventilate its fuel, it caused a trail of steam that reflected sunlight.
- He created a spectacular blue swirl over Nelson, a town at the tip of the south island
- The Falcon 9 rocket carrying satellites was SpaceX’s third launch in 36 hours
From Sam Tonkin for Mailonline
Posted: 09:48, 21 June 2022 | Updated: 10:21, June 21, 2022
One of Elon Musk’s rockets gave the New Zealanders a spectacular view over the weekend, when he threw his fuel and created a bright blue swirl in the night sky.
The escape hatch comes from a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher that had just launched a satellite into space, although some thought it might have an extraterrestrial link.
As the rocket spun to ventilate its fuel, it created a trail of steam that reflected sunlight and produced a visible blue swirl that, according to eyewitnesses, moved “serenely” across the night sky.
One observer said it “looked like a huge spiral galaxy, just hanging there in the sky and slowly drifting.”
The plume lit up the sky over Nelson, a town on the southern tip of New Zealand, and traveled 466 miles (750 km) south to Stewart Island at around 7.30pm on Sunday.
“Fascinating”: One of Elon Musk’s rockets gave the New Zealanders a spectacular view over the weekend, when he threw his fuel and created a bright blue swirl in the night sky (pictured)
South Island star observers have discovered that the bright vortex (pictured) was caused by a SpaceX rocket launching its fuel.
Stewart Island star observer Alasdair Burns said the spiral was by far the strangest thing he had ever seen.
‘It was absolutely weird. It was like a massive spiral. And very, very slowly, moving serenely north through the night sky and then it dissipated as it went, ”he told Stuff.
“We quickly knocked on the doors of all our neighbors to get them out as well.
“And so there were about five of us, all on our shared terrace looking up and a little, well, a little scared.”
Augustine Matthews, a local from Māpua, said she ran out to see the spiral with her husband.
It looked like a planet or a star. It was just a white dot with a small spiral. And in 10 minutes it had crossed half the sky and the spiral had grown three times, “he said.
“It didn’t blink or sparkle, and it moved pretty fast … so fascinating.”
It was the company’s third launch in just 36 hours, after the explosion of 53 of its Internet Starlink satellites on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and on Saturday a radar satellite for the German Army from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
SpaceX launched a Globalstar communications satellite into orbit early Sunday from Cape Canaveral, making the third flight of the Falcon 9 rocket in 36 hours, the fastest three-mission sequence of any commercial launch company in history.
: @Mdcainjr pic.twitter.com/mmPSRx0pue
– Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 19, 2022
“The spiral that was seen in the sky tonight around 7:30 p.m. was probably a fuel dump or an escape plume from a SpaceX rocket launch,” the New Plymouth Astronomical Society wrote in a post on Facebook.
“Similar effects have been seen before, and SpaceX’s Globalstar 2 FM15 is likely to have passed through New Zealand at the time.”
The two-stage rocket was launched Sunday morning from the Cape Canaveral Florida space force station.
It carried a communications satellite for Louisiana-based company Globalstar, which SpaceX said was deployed approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes after launch as planned.
After sending its payload, the Falcon 9 began to vent its fuel, while the first stage of the rocket returned to Earth for a vertical landing on the SpaceX spacecraft.
It was the company’s third launch in just 36 hours, following the explosion of 53 of its Starlink Internet satellites on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the launch of a satellite of radar for the German army from the Vandenberg Space Force base in California. Saturday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Globalstar DM15 satellite on Sunday
ELON MUSK’S SPACEX IS BROUGHT THE WORLD BROADBAND INTERNET WITH ITS STARLINK SATELLITE CONSTELLATION
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 of its “Starlink” space Internet satellites and expects to have 12,000 in the sky by 2026.
They form a constellation designed to provide low-cost broadband Internet service from low Earth orbit.
Although satellite Internet has been around for a while, it has suffered from high latency and unreliable connections.
Starlink is different. SpaceX said its goal is to provide high-speed cable-like Internet worldwide.
Musk previously said the company could offer three billion people who currently do not have access to the Internet a cheap way to connect.
It could also help fund a future city on Mars.
Helping humanity reach the red planet has long been one of Musk’s goals and was what inspired him to start SpaceX.
Musk’s rival Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also plans to launch a constellation of low-Earth orbiting satellites to provide broadband access to remote areas, as part of its Kuiper Project.
However, astronomers have raised concerns about light pollution and other interference caused by these satellite constellations.
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