Herts student captures images of unusual ‘glowing spiral’ at Bayfordbury
An astrophysics student at the University of Hertfordshire captured images of an unusual “glowing spiral” light that was spotted across the UK skies on Monday night.
The luminous phenomenon - thought to be caused by a SpaceX rocket launch – was spotted by Vaishnav Nhalikkarammal at Bayfordbury Observatory, where he works as an outreach ambassador.
The spiral was thought to have been formed from frozen fuel plume ejected by the Falcon 9 rocket's exhaust, reflecting sunlight as it spun in the atmosphere.
Vaishnav, a final year undergraduate student, said he was initially unsure about what he was looking at.
He said: “At first, I thought it was a plane so I checked Flightradar but there were no planes flying over.
“The next thing that came to my mind was a spy drone, flying at high altitudes, and I thought the spiral might be due to the drone movement and the light glowing from it.
“We later figured out it was likely a Space X rocket, after double checking the videos from our cameras at Bayfordbury Observatory.
“It's one of the best things I have ever seen in my life!”
SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, held a launch for the US government shortly before 5.50pm UK time.
It is understood that leftover fuel froze and created the spiral shape visible across the UK and Europe for several minutes before fading.
Lord Dover, a senior technical officer at Bayfordbury Observatory, said: “Last night, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida carrying a classified payload.
“This rocket, which is fully reusable, dumped fuel in the upper atmosphere to shed weight before returning to Earth.
“This fuel formed an expanding, swirling cloud that developed into a giant spiral shape as it travelled over the Atlantic.
“At approximately 19:52, it became visible in the skies over the UK and moved across the sky for just over 10 minutes before dipping below the horizon.
“These sightings are becoming common in some parts of the world, but it’s still unusual for rocket launches to be visible like this from the UK.”
Click to learn more about Herts' Bayfordbury Observatory, one of the best-equipped and largest teaching observatories in the country, or to learn about studying astrophysics at Herts.