People across Europe were pretty confused last night, after a giant blue swirl appeared in the sky, lasting several minutes. Rather than a UFO or an ambiguous sign from a vengeful god, the spiral pattern is believed to have been caused by the launch of SpaceX’s classified NROL-69 Mission.
“On Monday, March 24 at 1:48 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched the NROL-69 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida,” SpaceX said in an update. “This was the second flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched a Starlink mission.”
The mission is part of a classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the government agency responsible for managing spy satellites. According to sources who spoke to Reuters in March 2024, Elon Musk’s firm is creating a network of hundreds of satellites that can operate as a swarm in low-Earth orbit, capable of imaging the Earth below.
While a successful launch, it caused quite the confusion in Europe, as fuel from the launch spread out across the European skies.
“A huge Catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it,” Stephen Hall, who saw the spiral as he took his bins out in Suffolk, UK, described the scene to the BBC. “It did pass my mind, is this an unexplained, unidentified flying object?”
The pattern itself is the result of the Falcon 9’s exhaust.
“We’ve received many reports of an illuminated swirl in the sky this evening,” the Met Office explained on X. “This is likely to be caused by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched earlier today. The rocket’s frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to appear as a spiral in the sky.”
Similar spiral patterns have been seen following previous launches, the result of the spinning motion of one of the rocket stages.
“It is likely either exhaust from a rocket burn to bring the second stage down over the Pacific, or perhaps dumping extra rocket fuel after that burn. The spiral pattern indicates that the second stage was spinning when it exhausted the gasses,” geophysicist Don Hampton, Poker Flat Rocket Range chief scientist, explained in a statement following a previous SpaceX launch.
“Any water vapor would turn into ice at these altitudes, and the ice would reflect sunlight where the rocket was, and make a bright cloud visible on the ground in Alaska where the sun was well below the horizon. It looks really bright in those pictures, but it is likely just a few pounds of water.”
