In early March, residents of Iceland and Norway noticed an unusual sight in the sky — a spiral similar to some kind of portal.
This information was reported by T4, reports URA-Inform.
It was reported to be quite large and bright, even eclipsing the northern lights. This phenomenon lasted about ten minutes, causing admiration and surprise among eyewitnesses.
Photos of this magical spiral quickly spread among the public. Astronomers have shed light on its mysterious origin; it turned out that the cause of its occurrence was not magic (the portal), but human technology.
As it turned out, the spiral was formed from the reflection of sunlight in a cloud of frozen fuel formed as a result of being dropped from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket was launched on March 4 from Vandenberg Space Center in California, with the goal of delivering 53 small satellites into orbit for various customers.
After the completion of the second stage mission, when the rocket began its descent from orbit, which led to to its combustion in the atmosphere over the Barents Sea, fuel was released, which in the form of crystals formed the mentioned cloud.
This episode with a light spiral is not unique to Falcon 9. Similar phenomena have already been recorded over Alaska and Hawaii. However, it is difficult to predict their appearance, because this requires the coincidence of many conditions: the appropriate time of day, the position of the rocket relative to the Earth and the Sun, as well as the orientation and rotation speed of the second stage that dumps fuel.
Recall that it was previously reported that scientists have found a new creature with a strange head (photo).
