A blue vortex appeared in the sky over Alaska after a SpaceX rocket launch at dawn on Saturday 15 April. The northern lights were also visible, The Guardian reported today. The phenomenon was caused by excess fuel ejected from a SpaceX rocket launched in California three hours earlier.
“Sometimes rockets carry fuel that they have to eject. When the fuel is ejected at high altitude, it freezes, turning into ice, and if it happens in sunlight when it’s still dark on the Earth’s surface, from below it looks like a big cloud that sometimes looks like a vortex,” said University of Alaska astrophysicist Don Hampton.
Although the phenomenon is unusual, Hampton has observed it three times. His institute’s cameras, which track the entire sky, captured the formation of the vortex, and then an accelerated recording of it was posted on social media. Photographers who observed the Northern Lights also posted their images online.
A SpaceX rocket launched Friday evening from the Vandenberg base in California. It was carrying about 25 satellites. Since this so-called “polar launch” occurred, it could be seen over large parts of Alaska.
A similar spiral was observed over Hawaii in January, on the summit of Mauna Kea. The Subaru telescope of Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory recorded the vortex as it passed across the night sky. Researchers believe the phenomenon was caused by fuel from a SpaceX rocket launched in Florida and carrying military satellites.
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