A huge vortex of light was clearly visible across large parts of England. This stunning video was captured in Billingborough, Lincolnshire. (Photo: Simon Minnican/@minnican.bluesky.social)
A magnificent swirl of light was spotted floating across the night sky over Europe on Monday (March 24), resembling an ethereal vortex. The amazing light show was not caused by aliens, as some had speculated, but was the result of a dying SpaceX rocket preparing to crash to Earth shortly after it had launched a secret payload into orbit around our planet.
At around 8pm local time (4pm ET), people in the UK reported seeing a swirl of light growing in size as it slowly moved across the sky, like something out of a sci-fi film, the BBC reported. The light show was particularly visible over parts of England, including Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Suffolk and Essex, as well as Wales and further afield in Sweden, Croatia, Poland and Hungary.
Photographer Simon Minnican captured the otherworldly scene in a stunning video, in which the bright spot appeared and grew larger before turning into an ever-expanding vortex. The entire spectacle lasted for about 12 minutes, with the spiral of light dissipating about four minutes after it unfolded.
There was some wild speculation about the cause of the unusual light show at first, with at least one observer blaming a UFO. However, experts quickly pointed out that it was a “SpaceX spiral” – an increasingly common phenomenon caused by light reflecting off rocket fuel jettisoned into space by spinning SpaceX rockets before they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere.
In this case, the spacecraft responsible for the glowing spiral was a Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida at 1:48 a.m. ET, more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) from where the bright spiral was later spotted. That rocket was carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, according to Live Science sister site Space.com.
SpaceX's spirals occur because the Falcon 9 rocket's stages dump their remaining fuel into space before entering the atmosphere.
SpaceX's spirals occur when the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket leaves orbit and prepares to enter Earth's atmosphere, where it either burns up or falls into the ocean. During this maneuver, the spacecraft releases its remaining fuel into space, which then freezes into a cloud of tiny crystals that reflect sunlight back to Earth. The second stage typically spins as it releases its fuel, which is what causes the resulting cloud to spiral — and explains why the vortex continually expands before dissipating.
Previously, such spirals were rare, but they are now being observed more frequently due to the increase in Falcon 9 rocket launches.
Sourse: www.livescience.com
