New Zealanders were surprised by the appearance of a mysterious spiral in the night sky on Sunday (19/6). Was mistaken for a UFO to aliens, it turns out that the sighting was allegedly caused by a SpaceX rocket.
One of the New Zealanders who managed to capture the sighting was Alasdair Burns. The man who works as a stargazing guide admitted that he saw a blue spiral in the middle of the dark night.
"It looks like a very large spiral galaxy, just floating in the sky, and slowly drifting. It feels quite scary," said Burns, as quoted by The Guardian, Friday (24/6/2022).
Burns swiftly took many photos of the spiral using his cell phone camera. He also invited his neighbors to come out and observe the strange phenomenon.
Stargazing groups and amateur astronomers in New Zealand were immediately excited to see this phenomenon, which can be seen from most areas of the South Island. On social media, they put out various theories, ranging from UFOs, rockets, to light shows.
"The harbinger of a black hole in our orbit," said one stargazer.
"Aliens in action again," another commented.
@Alasdair_Burns saw this beautiful rocket exhaust spiral in the sky over Stewart Island this evening #space #SpaceX #NewZealand pic.twitter.com/Gv2XpcK3Ii
— Alasdair Burns (@burns_alasdair) June 19, 2022
But the appearance of the spiral turns out to have a not-so-fantastic explanation. Such spiral clouds usually appear after a rocket has taken a satellite into orbit.
Not long before the spiral sighting appeared, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had just completed a mission to bring Globalstar's satellite into orbit from its launch center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The spiral most likely appeared due to the fuel released by the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket which has a higher pressure than the surrounding air, and a combination of several other things.
"When the fuel is expelled from behind, it creates something that is essentially water and carbon dioxide - which rapidly forms clouds in outer space that are illuminated by the sun," said Auckland University physicist Prof Richard Easther.
"The geometry of the orbits of the satellites as well as our relative position to the sun - the combination of those things is just right to produce the strange looking clouds seen from the South Island," he continued.
Burns had suspected the spiral was caused by a rocket, having heard of a similar phenomenon that occurred in 2009 during a Russian missile launch that caused a blue spiral in the Norwegian sky.
SpaceX rocket launches have also caused some unique phenomena in outer space. Last month, after the Falcon 9 rocket launched the Internet satellite Starlink into orbit, there was a jellyfish-like sighting in the Florida skies.