{"id":513,"date":"2009-12-10T09:18:13","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T09:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2009\/12\/10\/amazing_spiral\/"},"modified":"2009-12-10T09:18:13","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T09:18:13","slug":"amazing_spiral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2009\/12\/10\/amazing_spiral\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazing Spiral Lights Over Norway – December 9, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the morning of Dec 9th, many in Norway were treated to a beautiful sight. An enormous, pearlescent, spiral lit up the twilight sky.<\/a> Of course, some suspect it to be of extraterrestrial alien origin. There is a better explanation though: it was a twilight-affected rocket launch. A no-fly alert was issued<\/a> for the area over the White Sea on Dec. 9th. In 2005, we watched<\/a> a scheduled evening twilight Minotaur launch from Vandenberg AFB about 400 miles to the west. It was a stunning and very unusual sight. <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That launch did not, however, sport a spiral. If you’ve ever launched a model rocket and didn’t have the fins attached correctly, you may have noticed a crazy spiral smoke trail as your creation soared (wobbled) into the sky–or into the ground nearby. See this photo of an ill-advised horizontal launch from many years ago (my buddy Chris is hiding behind the dirt berm in the background).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It looks to me like something similar happened over Norway, which would mean the rocket may have failed, causing it to spin and eject fuel in a spiral pattern as it soared away. In most of the images, you can see two spirals: a large, diffuse spiral, and a brighter, tighter spiral at its core. This is similar to what we saw with the Minotaur launch, which was a diffuse and rapidly expanding outer shell, with a tighter, more stable core of material in the center. It seem to me that this may be due to different compositions in the exhaust: lighter, more volatile material that spreads quickly and easily in the tenuous upper atmosphere, and denser material that doesn’t spread so readily. <\/p>\n

Rocket launches that are backlit by the sun while your observing location is still dark are fantastic sights. In fact, another evening twilight launch is tentatively scheduled for a Minotaur IV launch in the near future: Vandenberg AFB Launch Schedule<\/a>. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled!<\/p>\n

[[Update: Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed this was a failed test ICBM launch: BBC News.<\/a>]]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazing Spiral Lights Over Norway – December 9, 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-satellite"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":477,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2009\/07\/01\/columbia_scient\/","url_meta":{"origin":513,"position":0},"title":"Columbia Scientific Balloon Assembly – JUN 11, 2009","author":"jperez1690","date":"July 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Columbia Scientific Balloon Assembly 20090611","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":554,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2010\/12\/08\/drawn_to_the_un_17\/","url_meta":{"origin":513,"position":1},"title":"Drawn to the UniverseDECEMBER 2010 – Twilight Conjunction","author":"jperez1690","date":"December 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sketch of Twilight Lunar-Planetary Conjunction - AUG 13, 2010 Move mouse over sketch above to view labels. 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