CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared into the dawn sky Tuesday morning on a cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station, treating observers across the southeastern United States to a glowing atmospheric phenomenon known as a “space jellyfish.”
Space.com reported the Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:35 a.m. EDT, while FOX 35 Orlando placed the launch time at 6:33 a.m. The rocket carried an uncrewed Dragon capsule packed with 6,300 pounds of cargo and scientific experiments for NASA’s 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission, known as CRS-35.
Following an orbital trajectory aligned with the space station, the rocket flew northward along the Atlantic coastline. Stargazers across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas captured vivid photographs of the glowing display, and FOX Weather reported sightings of the rocket launch as far north as Michigan.
Richard Mack Wilson-Leigh watched the vehicle from Durham, North Carolina, just before the first-stage booster completed its burn and separated to head back toward Florida. Wilson-Leigh told Space.com that the sudden maneuvers caught him completely off guard.
“At first, I thought it was a comet,” Wilson-Leigh told Space.com. “My mind jumped between two thoughts: that is just beautiful beyond belief, and it is the end of the world.”
In Colbert, Georgia, Ellen Alence photographed the spectacle from her farm, telling Space.com she was stunned when she opened her back door early in the morning to let her dogs out.
How the ‘Space Jellyfish’ Forms
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center explained on social media platform X that the striking display occurs during missions scheduled around sunrise or sunset.
“A jellyfish happens near sunrise or sunset when the exhaust plume from the rocket becomes brightly illuminated, creating a glowing shape resembling a jellyfish,” the center wrote.
As the booster climbs through increasingly thin, low-density air, its exhaust plume expands dramatically outward to become far wider than the rocket itself, Space.com reported. Scientists at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa confirmed the engine exhaust traveled at least 30 miles above Earth, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported. In the freezing conditions of the upper atmosphere, expelled water vapor turns into ice crystals that trail the vehicle.
Because the vehicle flies so high, direct sunlight strikes the cloud of frozen particles while the surface below still lingers in predawn darkness. The reflected light illuminated the exhaust in swaths of blue, purple and orange, FOX 35 and FOX Weather reported.
Dr. Mackenna Wood, head of the Saunders Planetarium at the Tampa museum, told FOX 13 that the visual effect only appears during flights near dawn or dusk and emphasized that what spectators witnessed was not harmful pollution.
What Happens Next
Stage separation took place approximately two and a half minutes into flight, allowing the first-stage booster to navigate back toward the Florida coast for landing, Space.com reported. The upper stage continued forward to deliver the Dragon spacecraft into orbit for its two-day journey toward the space station.
Dragon is scheduled to autonomously dock with the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module around 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 15, according to Space.com. The cargo flight comes after a busy rotation period aboard the outpost, where SpaceX’s Crew-13 arrived on Oct. 1 and Crew-12 returned to Earth on Oct. 8. FOX Weather reported the resupply mission is expected to conclude in November.
