• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Spectacular Spirals In The Sky Over Europe Traced To Classified SpaceX Mission

March 25, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

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.

ADVERTISEMENT

“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.”

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

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?”



ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

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.

ADVERTISEMENT

“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.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Disney to debut rest of 2021 films exclusively in theaters
  2. Tennis-After ‘very cool’ three weeks, U.S. Open champ Raducanu ready to get back to business
  3. Pet Parrots Taught To Video Call Each Other To Prevent Loneliness
  4. How Long Do Chickens Live?

Source Link: Spectacular Spirals In The Sky Over Europe Traced To Classified SpaceX Mission

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • New Nightmare Fuel Unlocked: Watch The First Known Capture Of A Shrew By A False Widow Spider
  • Peculiar Glow In The Milky Way Might Be Dark Matter Signature
  • “I Was Scared To Death”: Missouri’s Great Cobra Scare Of 1953 Was Eventually Solved After 35 Years
  • Two Spacecraft To Fly Through Comet 3I/ATLAS’s Ion Tail – Will They Be Able To Catch Something?
  • Pioneering Heavy Water Detection Suggests Earth’s Water Might Be Older Than The Sun
  • PhD Students’ Groundbreaking New Technique Rescues JWST’s Highest Resolution Data
  • Popcorn-Like Parasites And Weird Worms Among 14 New Species Discovered In The World’s Oceans
  • Poem From 1181 CE Cairo Appears To Reference A Rare Galactic Supernova
  • With “Iridescent Live Colors”, Newly Discovered Beautiful Dwarfgoby Lives Up To Its Name (Mostly)
  • “Anti-Tail” And Odd 594-Kilometer Feature Found On Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS By Keck Observatory
  • Why Do We Call It A “Hamburger” When It Doesn’t Contain Ham?
  • What Aristotle Got Wrong About The Octopus
  • The World’s Largest Island Is Shrinking And Shifting
  • Record-Breaking Marshmallow Planet – It’s A Cold, Peculiar World On A Very Slanted Orbit
  • Distinctive Rocks Might Be Remnants Of Earth Before The Collision That Made The Moon
  • Bright Northern Lights Across America Expected This Week As 3 Coronal Mass Ejections Fly Towards Earth
  • Brain Implant Enables Paralyzed Man To Feel And Use Objects Using Someone Else’s Hands
  • “This Is A Really Big Deal”: Brain Training Significantly Improves Key Neurochemical Levels In World First
  • “Wholly Unexpected”: First-Ever Fossil Paranthropus Hand Raises Questions About Earliest Tool Makers’ Identity
  • For Centuries, Nobody Knew Why Swiss Cheese Has Holes. Then, The Mystery Was Solved.
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version