Alaska’s skies are quite intriguing lately, with phenomena that can’t just go unnoticed! A recent event amazed people, but it has a simple explanation. It began with Todd Salat, who was outside early on Saturday morning (April 15), and his camera. His goal: to capture the beauty of the aurora borealis. Little did he know that his shot would be twisted!
The photographer from Anchorage noticed something quite peculiar: a brilliant light, quite sudden, on the northern horizon that soon began to resemble a spiral as it got closer. At first look, you can say that’s definitely something SF. I mean, check it out for yourself below:
The shot is incredible, but what’s the real story here?!
Don Hampton, an associate research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, came in for our help and offered some answers to the spiral thingy that looks quite extraterrestrial.
He explained:
[the spiral] appears to be rocket engine exhaust from a SpaceX Transporter-7 mission that launched on the Falcon 9 about three hours earlier in California; […] Water vapor in the exhaust from the second stage engine freezes and catches high-altitude sunlight, effectively glowing and creating this spiral galaxy of a display.
Quite the event, isn’t it?! Somehow it’s a bit disappointing to not see some wild theories about the glowing spiral.
Going on with other amazing pictures of the event, someone else was watching the same thing and wondered what could it be. Elizabeth Withnall, a midwife in the Northwest Arctic settlement of Kotzebue, was outside in the early hours of Saturday (April 15) in an effort to see the northern lights, which were expected to remain bright tonight. She was actually hundreds of kilometers distant from Salat.
Her capture looks stunning, and you can admire it below:
How would you reach to such events?