In Photos: Weird ‘Blue Spiral' In The Sky That Just Went Viral
The "SpaceX Spiral" seen from Dalby-Viggeby, south of Uppsala, Sweden just after 21:00 CET on March ... More 24, 2025. (Photo by BERTRAND ILHE/AFP via Getty Images)
Skywatchers across western Europe were shocked to see a blue spiral in the night sky on Monday, March 24, 2025, a sight that caused social media to be dominated by strange and confusing images for many hours.
The giant blue spiral seen from myriad locations across the continent proved not to be aliens — as frequently mooted — but the exhaust from a rocket launch two hours previously.
The U.K.'s Met Office weather service received multiple reports of an "illuminated swirl in the sky' at about 8:00 p.m. GMT (4:00 p.m. EDT). It was visible for several minutes and thought by some to be the result of extraterrestrial activity, according to The Guardian. It was caused by SpaceX, a company owned by Elon Musk that frequently launches satellites, typically its own, for its Starlink broadband internet constellation.
However, this launch of a Falcon 9 rocket took one, or possibly more, surveillance satellites into Earth orbit on a mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). That mission launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 1:48 p.m. EDT on Monday, March 24 — about two hours before the spiral was sighted in Europe — though exactly what was being launched is unknown.
The shape of the spinning spiral is akin to that of a spiral galaxy, but it's a frozen plume of fuel from the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket reflecting the sun's light from below the horizon. The rocket was in the upper atmosphere and spinning at the time — possibly because at least two satellites were being deployed — causing a spiral shape to be seen.
The "SpaceX Spiral" seen from Dalby-Viggeby, south of Uppsala, Sweden just after 21:00 CET on March ... More 24, 2025 shows a blue and white spiral in the night sky. (Photo by BERTRAND ILHE/AFP via Getty Images)
This is not the first time a blue spiral has been seen in the wake of a SpaceX rocket launch. Similar phenomena have been seen over the Barents Sea, New Zealand, east Africa, Hawaii and Alaska, according to SpaceWeather.com.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
27 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: In Chaotic Economy, Hiring Remained Steady in May
Matt Minich, who was fired from his job with the Food and Drug Administration in February, was one of thousands swept up in the mass layoffs of probationary workers at the beginning of President Trump's second administration. After Matt Minich was fired from his job with the Food and Drug Administration in February, he did what many scientists have done for years after leaving public service. He looked for a position with a university. Mr. Minich, 38, was one of thousands swept up in the mass layoffs of probationary workers at the beginning of President Trump's second administration. The shock of those early moves heralded more upheaval to come as the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, raced through agency after agency, slashing staff, freezing spending and ripping up government contracts. In March, about 45 minutes after Mr. Minich accepted a job as a scientist in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, the program lost its federal grant funding. Mr. Minich, who had worked on reducing the negative health impacts of tobacco use, observed that he had the special honor of 'being DOGE-ed twice.' 'I'm doubly not needed by the federal government,' he said in an interview. He is still hunting for work. And like hundreds of thousands of other former civil servants forced into an increasingly crowded job market, he is finding that drastic cuts to grants and contracts in academia, consulting and direct services mean even fewer opportunities are available. Some states that were hiring, another avenue for former federal government employees, have pulled back. So, too, have the private contractors typically seen as a landing place. The situation is expected to worsen as more layoffs are announced, voluntary departures mount and workers who were placed on administrative leave see the clock run out. Image More than 700 people attended a recent resource fair in Arlington, Va., to receive free consultation, professional headshots and workshops. Credit... Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times With Mr. Musk's time in Washington now done, a fuller picture of just how completely he and Mr. Trump have upended the role of government is coming into view. Federal tax dollars underpin entire professions, directly and indirectly, and the cuts led by Mr. Musk's operation have left some workers with nowhere to go. In Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area, the disruption has the hallmarks of the collapse of an industrial cluster, not unlike the disappearance of manufacturing jobs in the upper Midwest during the 2000s. Except this time, it is moving at lightning speed. In January, just as Mr. Trump was taking office, the civilian federal work force across the country had reached a post-World War II peak of 2.3 million, not including the Postal Service. Few agencies have publicly stated how many people have been fired or voluntarily resigned, but a rough count shows that federal agencies have lost some 135,000 to firings and voluntary resignation, with another 150,000 in planned reductions. Contracted and grant-funded workers — which the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated to be as many as 4.6 million people — are harder to track in official data. The first contractor layoffs began in February with organizations that received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, like Chemonics and FHI360. As more grants and contracts that were under review across government are terminated, job cuts have gained steam. Booz Allen Hamilton, the sprawling consulting firm based in Northern Virginia that gets 98 percent of its revenue from the federal government, announced that it was cutting 7 percent of its 36,000-person staff. Even providers of Head Start, the low-income preschool program, have issued layoff notices because funding has been in doubt. While the national labor market remains stable, job loss is starting to become notable in the capital region. Unemployment rates in the District of Columbia and most of its surrounding counties have been on the rise since December. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance has been elevated in Virginia and D.C. over the past several months. Job postings in Washington have dropped across the board, according to the hiring platform Indeed, including in opportunities for administrative assistance, human resources and accounting. Local government agencies around Washington are hosting dozens of hiring events, and most of them are packed. Elaine Chalmers of Woodbridge, Va., was among 750 people who attended a recent resource fair in Arlington, Va., just outside Washington. The event offered free consultation for updating résumés, as well as professional headshots and workshops, including one on managing personal finances during a transition in employment. Image Elaine Chalmers of Woodbridge, Va., resigned from her role at the Agriculture Department to escape the stress and uncertainty created by new mandates. Credit... Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times It was the fourth one she attended in the month since she left the Agriculture Department, where she had worked for 20 years, most recently in the division that ensured equal access to grants for rural communities. She resigned to escape the stress and uncertainty created by new mandates, such as erasing words like 'equity' and 'diversity' from department communications. 'It just became almost a character question for myself,' said Ms. Chalmers, 53. 'I couldn't honorably stay.' Like many of the federal workers who chose to take a deferred resignation or early retirement, one of the tools the administration has used to shrink the work force, she is on leave and will be paid through September. It is a relief, she said, because she is the sole caregiver for her mother and 15-year-old son. But the prospects do not look good. Ms. Chalmers said she expected to have to take a pay cut. She said she applied for more than 100 jobs in the week before the job fair and received several automated emails informing her that she did not get the position. For many government workers, career transitions can be especially daunting because their jobs are often extremely specific, performing functions that do not exist in the private sector. 'For a lot of them, it's almost like starting from scratch,' said Laura Moreno-Davis, a spokeswoman for WorkSource Montgomery, the work force agency for Montgomery County, Md., just outside D.C. 'If they really have a wealth of experience and knowledge, how can we best use that?' A new group formed by two former federal employees is trying to help people do that. 'How do you translate these skills that you've learned in the federal government that are so complex and seem to be so unique into something that can be communicated easily outside of the federal government?' said Julie Cerqueira, co-founder of the group, FedsForward. Ms. Cerqueira's partner, Karen Lee, said that people who worked in federal disaster recovery and resilience jobs, for example, had expertise that could easily transfer to private-sector work in contingency planning and supply chains. But it is not so simple for everyone. Chelsea Van Thof, 33, is a public health veterinarian who focused on diseases that spread from animals to humans, and humans to animals — a niche job even in government. A few weeks after the inauguration, the contract she worked under at the State Department was placed on hold for a 90-day review and ultimately terminated. Dr. Van Thof immediately lost her health insurance and took on a housemate to cover her rent. Image Chelsea Van Thof, a public health veterinarian, saw the contract she worked under at the State Department be placed on hold for a 90-day review and ultimately terminated a few weeks after President Trump's inauguration. Credit... Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times Plans for the future changed, too, as she had been counting on public-sector loan forgiveness to pay off her $250,000 in veterinary school debt, a prospect that now seems increasingly remote. She sometimes feels as though she is sending résumés into a void. 'I was just thankful when I got a rejection because it meant they saw my application,' she said. Like others in the science field, including Mr. Minich, she is looking for jobs outside the country. And in the meantime, she helped form a support group of about 80 wildlife protection conservationists who are in similar predicaments. People working on government contracts are hit especially hard because they are not eligible for the deferred resignation plans available to federal employees, and cannot look forward to their pensions. Todd Frank, of Westminster, Md., was given just a few minutes' notice before he was laid off as a technical writer on a contract with the Department of Homeland Security's science and technology directorate, helping get the appropriate gear out to military personnel in the field. Mr. Frank, 54, is now wrestling with whether to uproot his family to find a new job, which would come with steep trade-offs. His wife runs her own business — a licensed day care out of their home. His teenage sons do not want to leave their high school, he said. Lately, he is looking at the family's budget for where to make cuts. 'Not being able to buy a suit for prom sounds like rich people problems, but you don't want to turn around and tell your kid, 'You can't do this' or 'You can't do that,'' Mr. Frank said. Several states had advertised their eagerness to hire people laid off by the federal government in the early days of federal cuts. In March, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania said the state would give hiring preference to former federal workers. Since then, the state government has received more than 7,300 applications from people who said they had federal experience, his office said, and so far, state agencies have hired 120 of them. But state jobs have gotten a lot more popular in recent months. Since March, former and current federal employees have sent in nearly 700 applications, California's human resources office said. Some states are having their own budget problems, in part brought on by uncertainty around the continuation of federal funding. Alaska, Massachusetts, Indiana, Louisiana and New Hampshire have implemented hiring freezes. Public health agencies in Ohio and Alaska have laid people off as grants were canceled. And a broad swath of universities have also paused new hires, including the University of California system, the University of Pennsylvania, and Emory University in Georgia. With the Trump administration's firings of scientists and grant cancellations from agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, science and consulting have been hit especially hard, according to Indeed. Companies and nonprofits that helped evaluate whether federal programs were working, like American Institutes for Research, have let go up to a quarter of their payroll. Paro Sen, a research scientist in Cincinnati, was laid off in May along with most of the people in her office at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. She worked on industrial hygiene, studying worker exposures that cause chronic health problems, and visited Washington in May with her union to talk to members of Congress about the need to restore these jobs to the federal government. 'This was my dream job that I have been ripped from,' she said in an interview. Ms. Sen and her colleagues work in such a specialized field that they are competing for very few available jobs, especially if they want to stay where they are. 'The job market right now is not amazing,' said Ms. Sen, 29. 'Cincinnati is not a very big city, and you've got, suddenly, some of the smartest people in this field all applying and competing for the exact same jobs at the same time.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
What is the Dragon spacecraft? SpaceX project in the middle of the Musk-Trump drama
Elon Musk has thrown the future of a SpaceX project, the Dragon spacecraft, into doubt after floating, but then retracting, the idea of decommissioning the project. The billionaire is currently in the midst of a public fallout with US President Donald Trump, who had threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk's businsesses, sparking Musk to bite back on the social media platform X. 'In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,' Musk posted on X, with a screenshot of Trump's threat on Truth Social attached. In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' the president had written. 'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' Following advice from a follower for both Musk and Trump to 'cool down', the SpaceX owner replied: 'Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon.' Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025 That's likely good news for both SpaceX's wallets and NASA's operations, with more than $20bn worth of government contracts, largely from NASA and the Department of Defense, going towards Musk's company since 2008. Here's a closer look at the Dragon spacecraft and its purpose at NASA. NASA uses the Dragon to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), with it perhaps most famously being used to return stranded NASA astronauts Barry 'Butch' Wilmore and Sunita Williams safely to Earth. This was after their Boeing Starliner capsule left without them in the midst of technical issues. Another SpaceX Dragon launch is due for June 10, with plans to ferry four people to and from the ISS on Axiom Mission 4. NASA will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space. We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met. — Bethany Stevens (@NASASpox) June 5, 2025 NASA doesn't appear to be concerned about the discussions between Musk and Trump, with press secretary Bethany Stevens making a statement on X that reads: 'NASA will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space. We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met.'
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Musk says SpaceX will no longer decommission Dragon spacecraft despite Trump feud
Elon Musk said Thursday he changed his mind about decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft after an X user suggested he 'cool off and take a step back' amid his public blowout with President Trump. 'Ok we won't decommission Dragon,' Musk wrote Thursday night in response to the user. Just hours earlier on Thursday, Musk said SpaceX, his aerospace company, will ground Dragon, the spacecraft NASA uses to service the International Space Station. 'In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,' Musk said Thursday afternoon. Musk's post included a screenshot of a threat from Trump to eliminate billions of dollars in federal contracts and subsidies the tech billionaire's companies receive. But by Thursday night, the blowout appeared to be calming down. One X user replied to Musk's afternoon post, 'This is a shame this back and forth. You are both better than this. Cool off and take a step back for a couple days.' Musk replied, 'Good advice,' and said he would not decommission Dragon. Dragon, as described by SpaceX, is the 'only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth and is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the space station. Musk's change of mind was a relief for many in the aerospace community, as NASA has become increasingly reliant on SpaceX for space operations. The decommissioning of Dragon could risk the Trump administration's ability to bring astronauts and cargo back and forth between the space station and Earth. NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said in a post on X that the agency 'will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space. We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met.' The back-and-forth came amid a broader feud between Musk and Trump. At one point, Musk accused Trump of being listed in the classified files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
