Americans living in the state of Georgia were recently amazed by a so-called ‘space jellyfish’ emerging in the skies above their heads on the morning of May 5. Theories immediately started to appear, and they were as wild and amusing as possible.
Could there be aliens? Could there be some sort of attack with powerful weapons? Luckily, none of those theories is correct.
One of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets is to blame
The ‘space jellyfish’ has a completely scientific explanation. The phenomenon has to do with one of the Falcon 9 rockets of SpaceX launching from the Kennedy Space Center of Florida, according to LiveScience.com.
Otherwise, if you watch the footage, surely you would be tempted to believe that it’s an out-of-this-world phenomenon. There’s no wonder why Chris Combs, who is aerodynamics and mechanical engineering professor from the University of Texas, called it a ‘space jellyfish.’ Behold:
SPACE JELLYFISH
From today’s SpaceX launch. Beautiful pic.twitter.com/98mzIGHDOm
— Chris Combs (@DrChrisCombs) May 6, 2022
If you open the conversation, you’ll also find an explanation from the scientist, who said:
Why do we see this? It’s a combination of compressible flow physics and perfect timing where the gas is illuminated by light just over the horizon.
It’s nice to see that SpaceX remains very active in the space exploration field. The agency keeps taking the idea of sending people to Mars until the end of the current decade seriously. But is it really feasible? Well, yes, it definitely is if we believe what Gwynne Shotwell has to say, meaning the President and also Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX.
Elon Musk is another SpaceX official who firmly believes in the possibility of sending humans to the Red Planet. He even said during an interview for TED that pretty much everyone would afford to go there in the future via SpaceX.
