It may look like the beginning of an alien invasion or a portal to the far reaches of the universe, but there is a surprisingly simple reason this spiral appeared in the sky.
abc.net.au/news/alaska-sky-spiral-caused-by-spacex-rocket-fuel/102234638Alaskan locals were baffled in the early morning of April 16 as they looked up to the sky to see a light blue spiral resembling a galaxy.The cause of the spiral was surprisingly simple.
It was excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral appeared, according to space physicist Don Hampton. Professor Hampton, from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, said rockets sometimes had fuel that needed to be jettisoned."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 captured in time lapse footage on the Geophysical Institute's all-sky camera and shared widely.While not a common sight, Professor Hampton said he had seen such occurrences about three times.The SpaceX rocket, Falcon 9, took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on the night of April 15."The timing was right. They had done some sort of fuel dump at that time, and we got that really cool-looking spiral thing," he said.
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