Strange swirl appears in the sky

[seek10]

Here is some thing many people seen in Arkansas and other surrounding states in the sky. There are different opinions of what it is including space-x rocket launch effect.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/leisure-recreation/live-news/weather-permitting-photo-blog/933860

Houston Hill was sitting outside with friends when he saw a mysterious spectacle appear over the sky in northwest Arkansas on January 31, 2022. Like many who saw it from surrounding states, he had no idea what it was, so he posted it to Facebook. Meteorologists were flooded with reports and took to social media to explain what it was. People witnessed the fascinating event from North Dakota all the way down to Oklahoma and Arkansas.

According to Space.com, these spiral-shaped clouds have been witnessed after SpaceX launches in the past and are created when the rocket vents its remaining fuel after delivering the satellite into orbit around the Earth. According to AccuWeather Astronomy multimedia journalist Brian Lada, the fuel from the rocket was so high up in the atmosphere that it was still being illuminated by the sun, which had long ago set. This is why the "clouds" appeared to be glowing in the clear sky, which was provided by a high-pressure system over the Rocky Mountains.

 

[Alejo]

It does look like a rocket launch, there have been a few videos over the years, here's a few examples.

It still is such a mesmerizing phenomena.

 

[Ocean]

Some said it was the Falcon 9 rocket. My first guess was Project Bluebeam.
Wonder if it was related to the Oklahoma earthquake?

 

[Benjamin]

Apparently, more Falcon 9 shenanigans. Video posted Apr. 17, 2022.

Watch as Mysterious Shiny Spiral Flies Over Hawaii Sky​

Apr. 20, 2022

© Photo : YouTube/ 管理人_すばる

Usually, the first reaction to something bizarre appearing in the sky is to brand it the UFO, but this time it looks like the cryptic trail in the Hawaii sky was man-made.

A mysterious shiny spiral was spotted in the sky above Mauna Kea in Hawaii; it was captured by the Subaru Telescope on Sunday.
Despite the very unusual scenery it created, the explanation behind the spiral may be quite prosaic. Apparently, it was a dying SpaceX rocket that generated the weird trail, which looked like a flying whirlpool in the sky.

The theory might be reasonable, particularly in light of the fact that the spiral was spotted in the sky shortly after a California-based Falcon 9 rocket launched a spy satellite into orbit. The launch was carried out from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

 

[XPan]

More rings, swirls and strange lights
20 June 2022 • Spaceweather.com

An interesting article was published at spaceweather.com today on 20 June 2022, about phenomenas revolving around SpaceX / Falcon9 rocket.

Following was written:

---

STRANGE THINGS IN THE SKY, COURTESY OF SPACEX
On Sunday morning, June 19th, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral (0427 UT). Within hours, people around the world started seeing strange things in the sky. First there was a "smoke ring." Jerrod Wood video-recorded it from central Illinois:

"I believe it shows the the orbital insertion of the Globalstar FM15 satellite as it separated from the Falcon 9's upper stage," says Wood.

He's right. Almost two hours after launch, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 deployed the Globalstar communications satellite; the smoke ring Wood saw was the "puff" of separation. Because it happened so far above Earth, more than 700 miles high, people saw the event across much of North America from Arizona to Missouri and beyond.

An hour after the smoke ring, things got really strange. People in New Zealand saw this:



"It looked like a beautiful galaxy appeared in the sky," says Alasdair Burns of Twinkle Dark Sky Tours. "It was a very slowly rotating spiral that started small and gradually expanded. Eventually it became so large and faint that it could no longer be seen. There were a group of us on our balcony watching it and none of us had ever seen anything like it."

This spiral was almost certainly the tumbling upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket executing a fuel dump. Similar spirals have been seen after previous Falcon 9 launches. This is an exceptionally clear photo of the phenomenon.

Finally, David Cortner of Rutherford College, North Carolina, saw something truly puzzling. He calls it "rocket powered aurora." This 8-frame mosaic shows a red band that appeared shortly after the launch:




"I went out to watch the midnight launch of the Falcon 9," says Cortner. "Here in western North Carolina, I was hoping for a faint, moonlit 'jellyfish.' The rocket's trajectory was much higher than I expected, however; it was almost 500 km high by the time it was due east of me, not 150-200 km as are most SpaceX flights up the Atlantic coast. As a result the rocket passed by me unseen."

"A minute or two after the rocket's closest approach (by the clock), I noticed this red glow spreading across a broad swath of the eastern sky." There was no space weather event in progress. Cortner speculates that the rocket itself somehow stimulated oxygen atoms ~500 km high to produce an artificial aurora. For reference, natural red auroras range in altitude typically from 150 km to 250 km, and more rarely all the way up to 600 km.

We do not know what produced this glow. Readers with good ideas are encouraged to share them

END OF ARTICLE

 

[XPan]

A follow up

Spaceweather.com wrote a follow up about the aurora-like red glow appearing in the sky over the US after that a SpaceX rocket was sent up, and writes following:


SPACEX MYSTERY, SOLVED

The mystery of SpaceX's "rocket powered auroras" has been solved. On Sunday morning, June 19th, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Photographers accustomed to seeing these launches were surprised when something unusual happened. A red glow stretched across the Milky Way. It looked like the aurora borealis, as shown in this photo from Christopher Hoffman in Saint Mary's County, Maryland:



"I went out with some first time photographers to teach them how to set up their cameras for night sky photography," says Hoffman. "We took a 30 second exposure, and when the exposure was finished I saw this red glowing area covering the Milky Way."

Photographers in New York, Ohio, North Carolina and Tennesee saw it, too. The glow appeared about 10 minutes after the Falcon 9 rocket lifted off, and many observers likened its appearance to auroras. However, there was no geomagnetic storm in progress. It had to be the rocket.

What happened?

Space physicist Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University has the answer: "This glow is probably the exhaust gasses from the rocket's 2nd stage causing the ionosphere to recombine quickly. This is a well studied phenomenon when rocket engines are firing in the altitude regime 200-250 km."




In simplified form, here is what happens: The upper atmosphere is filled with oxygen ions (O+). Of particular interest is the F-layer of the ionosphere, because it is rich in O+. When the Falcon 9 rocket reaches the F-layer, it adds water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to the mix, spewing the molecules out of its engine. Oxygen ions are hungry for electrons, and the newly arriving molecules are eager to provide them. Electrons "re-combine" with oxygen, turing ions into atoms. As electrons cascade down the oxygen atom's energy levels, they emit red photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å -- the same color as red auroras.

END OF ARTICLE


More images (spaceweather.com):


Photo by Brenda Calinawan

"I was trying to just take photos during the camping. After midnight and the rest of the stargazers packed up. I stayed a little bit. I saw this in my camera and then it became so huge on my lense and i can visibly see it with my eyes. It spread all over. I got scared lol and went back inside my tent. Lol! What is this? Been wondering all these time because it was my first time seeing it?"



Photo by Josh Thum

"Was outside taking some pictures from our porch while we were on vacation outside of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I had lost a tripod piece so I was free-handing some long exposures trying to see how the milky way would look. I took a 2-minute break and once I resumed I noticed a red glow in some of my pictures; at first I thought it was some lens flare or problem with the camera, but it kept showing even as I angled the camera differently.

I knew the kp-index was low and that faint airglow would likely not be shining through the light pollution like that, so I scratched my head about it and went to sleep. It was only when I checked out spaceweather that I connected the dots and got some explanation! I was unaware that there was a SpaceX launch happening at the same time, so it was a lucky coincidence. These were taken just a few minutes after midnight -- unfortunately, extreme light pollution in Pigeon Forge prevented me from getting any higher quality pictures (and that missing tripod!)."