In the small hour of Sunday morning , patient night lensman strike gold by capture an image of an other - worldly red gleaming darting across the galaxy . The perpetrator , they suspect , was a SpaceX rocket that launched just minutes before in Florida .
Photographer David S Johnston capture the shot of the red - tint sky while taking long - picture pic of the Milky Way at 12:30 am on June 19 in Bear Rocks , West Virginia .
The red color in the sky was not seeable to the nude eye , but after Johnston looked back at his photos , it was vindicated the television camera pick up on something special .
The first photos just show a red blob in the sky. Image courtesy of David S Johnston
“ I had no approximation what this was and it was kind of freaking me out , ” Johnston spell in aFacebookpost .
“ I bear witness the picture to some the great unwashed this morning and a protagonist , perhaps half in jest , suggested it could have been a rocket launching . But I did look into it , and sure enough , SpaceXlauncheda Falcon 9 with a Globalstar satellite warhead from Florida at 12:27 am , just a few minutes before the red appeared , ” he added .
Johnston is n’t alone in suspecting the rocket bam created the stunning scene . Similar imageswere snappedin Maryland , North Carolina , and elsewhere with many other photographers reaching the same conclusion , while some scientists also agree the SpaceX rocket explanation might be onto something .
The red scattered light looks like an aurora but is probably not. Image courtesy of David S Johnston
Carlos Martinis from the Center for Space Physics at Boston University explained to theWashington Postthat the ruddy glow may be linked to the engine burn of the Falcon 9′s 2nd stage , which typically starts about three minutes after ski lift - off at an EL when positive oxygen ion are present in the atmosphere . Fuelled by the intense rocket engine burns , the oxygen ions are encouraged to combine with other ambient speck and form molecular O2 + , N2 + , and NO+ ions , which oppose with negatron and farm a glow .
Alternatively , Tamitha Skov , a space conditions expert , tell the newspaper that the epitome may have picked up on a " sub - visual morning . ”
In the Northern Hemisphere , theaurora borealisis the mathematical product of electrically charged particles from the Sun ’s corona discharge clashing with Earth ’s magnetosphere . The collision release vigour , exciting gases in our upper ambiance and make causes ionisation of the atmospheric molecules . The chemical reaction also generates easy , with O ions producing unripened and yellow light , and nitrogen creating red or disconsolate ignitor .
A similar phenomenon may be behind the eerie red sky of late get word in the US , suggests Skov .
Whatever the account , we can all agree it made for some beautiful photography .
“ I ca n’t conceive I had my tv camera pointed in exactly the right direction and was actively shooting at just the right-hand time ! ” Johnston sound out in his Wiley Post .
