Frozen exhaust smoke from Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket left a spiral plume in the night sky, which had stargazers agog. The UK's Met Office confirmed the illuminated swirl had caused a flurry of reports from stunned onlookers.
In a post on X the authority said: "The rocket's frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to appear as a spiral in the sky."
The spirals form when ejected from the rocket and get frozen in space because of the altitude, before reflecting sunlight back towards Earth making them visible in the night sky.
The Falcon 9 rocket launched in Florida on Monday evening on a classified US government mission.
We've received many reports of an illuminated swirl in the sky this evening 💫
— Met Office (@metoffice) March 24, 2025
This is likely to be caused by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched earlier today. The rocket's frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to… pic.twitter.com/4a9urgZceR
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