Off The Record
The Truth About The Strange Glowing Spiral That People Were Perplexed By Last Night And Saw Throughout The UK
You weren’t alone if you noticed what appeared to be a luminous galaxy spinning above your head on Monday as you gazed up at the night sky. You also weren’t dreaming.
The sight of a dazzling, swirling spiral hovering in the sky astounded stargazers from England, Wales, and even portions of Europe.
It appeared to many like something from a science fiction film.
Questions, videos, images, and theories flooded social media, with some people half-jokingly speculating about whether or not aliens had finally arrived. The actual reason, however, is equally amazing and entirely human-made.
What Were The Glowing Spirals Seen In The Sky?
Many people took to social media to speculate about the swirls after witnessing the strange sight. Indeed, Google Trends indicates a sharp increase in UK users’ searches for “sky spirals”:
Thankfully, the riddle was soon solved by the Met Office. They claimed that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was the only cause of the spiral.
The Met Office wrote on X, “The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched earlier today, is probably to blame for this.” “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.”
On March 24, the Falcon 9 took out from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at approximately 1:50 PM local time (5:50 PM GMT).
It was a component of the National Reconnaissance Office’s classified US government mission.
A Stunning Side Effect of Rocket Science
Why, then, did it appear to be a luminous whirlpool in the sky?
In order to prevent re-entry explosions, the Falcon 9 disposed of any residual fuel as it descended back to Earth after discharging its payload.
The altitude caused that extra fuel to rapidly freeze. As the rocket descended, its frozen exhaust created a spiral pattern that reflected sunlight, illuminating the night sky below, according to BBC News.
In addition to the Met Office, Professor Brian Cox confirmed that it was a frozen plume from the Falcon 9.
Astronomer Allan Trow, who saw the spiral above Wales’s Bannau Brycheiniog National Park around 8:00PM GMT, said: “These are pretty rare,” but agreed it was most likely the rocket.
“It Looked Like a Swirling Galaxy”
People saw the unusual performance all throughout the UK, and they had a lot to say.
Trow called the scene a “portal to another world” in one tweet.
Steven Hall was taking the bins out at his home in rural Suffolk when he saw what looked like “a huge Catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it.”
“It did pass my mind, is this an unexplained, unidentified flying object?” he admitted to the BBC.
Meanwhile, a sky-watcher in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, said the swirl “started off as a bright light, then [had] a blurry ring around it and then a spiral.” They added: “[It] hovered over this church for about five minutes then started moving and disappeared.”
While out with her telescope, Stockport amateur astronomer Sonia noticed “a swirling galaxy that was moving across the sky.”
Keeley Williams, who watched from Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, said it “started off hazy, then became really bright before looking like it was spinning.”
Nor was the spiral restricted to a single region of the nation.
Images of the event were submitted from as far away as Denmark and Milan, Italy, as well as from Bulwick in Northamptonshire, Clee Hill in Shropshire, Gwynedd in Wales, and Castleford in West Yorkshire.
It’s safe to say that this was one night sky show that nobody anticipated or would quickly forget, whether you were looking at the stars or putting out the trash.
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