Kiwis gazing up into the night sky on Sunday might have spotted a strange sight: a mysterious glowing swirl high above the country.
Multiple New Zealanders captured images of the event and shared them to social media.
Crazy moving spiral over nelson NZ tonight! Think my kids summoned a portal! Arghh! #SpaceX #Rockets #UFOs #Portals pic.twitter.com/awtzFMGVnY
— kiwiChic (@SarahCa72304628) June 19, 2022
The unusual apparition has led to much confusion over its cause, with some speculating whether it was an astronomical phenomenon - or even whether it had extraterrestrial origins.
But experts say the cause is more prosaic - a dying SpaceX rocket stage. According to spaceflightnow.com, SpaceX made three launches over Friday, Saturday and Sunday - the last one a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Globalstar FM15 satellite.
Taken in Queenstown NZ about 30 minute's ago. Any ideas what it is? Some speculating it's got something to do with SpaceX @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/lvA2amDzGM
— Clare Rehill 🌸 🇮🇪🇵🇸 (@ClareRehill) June 19, 2022
@Alasdair_Burns saw this beautiful rocket exhaust spiral in the sky over Stewart Island this evening #space #SpaceX #NewZealand pic.twitter.com/Gv2XpcK3Ii
— Alasdair Burns (@burns_alasdair) June 19, 2022
SpaceX hauled a Globalstar communications satellite into orbit early Sunday from Cape Canaveral, pulling off the third Falcon 9 rocket flight in 36 hours, the fastest sequence of three missions by any commercial launch company in history.
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 19, 2022
📷: @mdcainjr https://t.co/0Y5ArwZPuf pic.twitter.com/mmPSRx0pue
After releasing its payload, the upper stage of the rocket spins and vents fuel - and this vapour trail then reflects the sunlight, creating the highly-visible swirl visible from the ground.
"The 'spiral' that was seen in the sky tonight around 7:30pm was most likely a fuel dump from a SpaceX rocket launch," the New Plymouth Astronomical Society posted to Facebook.
"Similar effects have been seen before, and SpaceX's Globalstar 2 FM15 was likely to have passed New Zealand around that time."
https://www.facebook.com/npobservatory/posts/5151020768318084
Regardless of the cause, it's an amazing sight that has Kiwis talking.
