SpaceX Starlink launches before dawn, and a magnificent cloud of light emerges in the night sky – yqqlm

IT House News on May 8th, in the early morning of Friday (May 6th), SpaceX launched the latest batch of “Starlink” satellites, creating a patch in the night sky before dawn. Eerie clouds of light, shining like fantasy monsters in medieval novels.

At 5:42 a.m. ET (17:42 Beijing time), SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 Starlink Internet satellites successfully lifted off at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX’s professional photo cameras captured a predawn cloud of light as the rocket swept across the Atlantic Ocean, illuminating the clouds. IT House learned that this was the 12th launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, which once again broke the company’s record of reuse. The last stage of the rocket successfully landed on an unmanned recovery ship of SpaceX to bring the launch to an end.

Residents of Florida and tourists around the coastline also saw footage of the glowing rocket breaking through the atmosphere. Local users shared the sky spectacle on major social platforms, and it even appeared in the reflection of the swimming pool.

Chris Combs, a professor of aerodynamics and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio, explained on Twitter that the rising sun came very close to the horizon and then illuminated the exhaust plume flow, resulting in a bright glow.

Foreign media LiveScience pointed out that this effect is called “Space Jellyfish” (Space Jellyfish), is a reflection phenomenon caused by the coincidence of the exhaust and launch time of Falcon 9.

According to public information, when the rocket is launched in the morning or evening, the plume of gas emitted by the rocket at high altitude is reflected by sunlight, which eventually formed this phenomenon. In the eyes of observers in the dark, the trajectory formed by the rocket gas at high altitudes under the reflection of sunlight is very similar to a jellyfish, hence the name space jellyfish.Because this phenomenon will cause many witnesses to panic, leading people to think of nuclear missile attacks and UFOs, so it is also known asJellyfish UFO.

It is reported that the booster number B 1058.12 that carried out this mission is its 12th mission, having previously carried out Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-II, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3 and 6 This Starlink mission was successfully recovered using the ASoG unmanned recovery ship. During this mission, the Starlink satellite separated from the Falcon 9 secondary about 54 and a half minutes after launch.

This is the 50th global space launch mission since 2022, the 27th in the United States, and the 18th for SpaceX’s Falcon 9.