What the hell is…

No, that’s not Photoshopped.  Hundreds of thousands in Norway were amazed to see an astoundingly visually dramatic spiral light in the sky.   You can find a number of photos here.

My first thought at seeing this was that it might be related to the Aurora Borealis, as Norway is at a high latitude.    However, space weather reports indicate no unusual geomagnetic events and low solar activity.

Right now, most experts believe that the source was probably a Russian rocket that malfunctioned shortly after launch.   Rocket launched just before dawn and just after dusk are known for being very dramatic and producing a glow effect.  Although the sun may not have risen over the horizon, at high altitudes, the first rays of the sun illuminate the exhaust plume.   This explanation appears to make the most sense, and previous rocket launches have produced similar spiral patterns due to malfunctions that caused the rocket stage to spin out of control.

Despite lack of official confirmation from Russia, international Navtext alerts indicate a missile launch in the area, possibly an ICBM test.

That still leaves one big question, however:  While many rocket launches do produce dramatic and apparently “glowing” exhaust plumes, few, if any, have the dramatically sharp and distinctive edges or nearly perfect geometry of this event.   Normally, exhaust plumes are blur and scatter due to high altitude winds and the diffusion of gasses.

Best guess for now:  This may have simply been a “perfect storm” of conditions.  Low high altitude winds, the sun just barely bellow the horizon, clear skys and a rocket malfunctioning in just the right place to be seen by many people.

More as this story develops.  At the moment, I’m looking to see if I can find any earth observation satellites that caught this thing or any other relevant data on it.

And no, this is not alien or magic.  It has nothing to do with HAARP or chemtrails.  I will tell you that for sure right now.

I’m a little jealous of the Norwegians.  Looks like an amazing spectral to see.

UPDATE 1: More videos have been posted.  Ones like this clearly show the nature of the event better than still photos.  It appears to be an object spinning and ejecting a cloud.  This would appear to support the belief that it was a missile, this may be an upper stage.   Many of the photos, as well as the video, do not show as many concentric spirals and do not show the edges as sharply as a few photos, such as the photo above.   It is possible that the high contrast and many spirals seen in a few photos could be related to the operation of the camera.  As this was taken in low light conditions, it may be an extended exposure.  It is also possible that focus correction systems built into the camera have caused the edges to look slightly sharper than they are in reality.

Update 2: Based on additional information, it appears that the missile that was launched was a Bulava missile, a submarine-launched ballistic missile currently under development by Russia.   The Bulava is the only missile which is currently in flight testing by Russia.   The last test of the Bulava was in July, and was the 11th failure of the missile, which has been plagued by technical problems and delays.   The Bulava is supposed to be used with the next generation of Russian ballistic missile submarines. It’s smaller than previous generations or submarine launched missiles and is supposed to represent the next step in missile technology.

It should be noted that the Bulava has a very unusual launch profile that may account for the very unusual spiraling pattern of the plume that was seen.   The Buliva missile carries up to ten MIRV warheads, which are arranged so that they point backwards from the initial trajectory of the missile.   After the smaller third stage motor initiates a trajectory correction burn manuver, followed by the separation of the MIRV bus.   The portion containing the warheads must spin, in a kind of controlled tumble, to reorient it such that the reentry vehicles can be ejected, one at a time, to their targets.

This illustration shows this highly unusual flight profile.

In order for the upper stage to function properly and accurately eject each warhead, it would need to have a system of motors capable of rotating the vehicle and controlling its direction, keeping it from going into a completely uncontrolled tumble.    Of course, while that is how the system would work in theory, it has not yet functioned properly in any of the previous tests.

I’m calling this mystery solved (or at least nearly solved, as we don’t yet have proof positive of this).    The unique spiraling and ejection of plumes is most probably due to the unique and troublesome Buliva upper stage.

Update 3: Here’s a video that shows the intended launch profile of the Buliva.

Update 4: Some additional photos and locations have been published.  I’m trying to see if I can use them to get a rough idea of the location by triangulating the sitings.   One photo is especially interesting.   From this website. Note the trail low on the horizon.  That is clearly a rocket launch plume.  It is nearly identical to other ballistic missile launches.   That should put this to rest.     The upper portion of the trail has the unusual blue color.  That may be due to how light is scattered by the exhaust and dust particles in the upper atmosphere and would be made more dramatic by the fact that this was taken around dawn, when the effect of light scattering is the greatest.

UPDATE 5:  ACTUAL EVENT WAS APPARENTLY NOT AS SPECTACULAR AS SOME PHOTOS INDICATE The event was spectacular, even super-spectacular, but it was just a wee bit less spectacular than the top most photo, the photo which has been the single most headlined photo would indicate.   The top most photo, with the super-bright, super-sharp swirls was taken by Odd Magne Haugen.   Mr. Haugen is not an amateur who just wipped out a point and shoot.  In fact, he is an experienced astrophotographer who has made many photos of the aurora.

Sky photography of this type involves time exposures of anywhere from a few seconds to minutes, and uses relatively high ISO sensors or film and high quality optics.   The time exposure helps to bring out the details of an otherwise dark image.   Based on the lightness of the sky and the bleed of the streetlamp, it appears that this photo was taken by this method, probably with an exposure of several seconds – possibly much more.

Therefore, while it is an excellent image, it does not represent how it would have looked to the naked eye.   The image taken by the camera shows all the light gathered during the exposure period.   However, all of the “swirls” visible were probably not visible at any one moment during the event.  Videos and other photos seem to confirm this.

Just think of time exposure images of traffic.   You see streamers going across the picture where car headlights passed by, but at any one moment, the headlights were in only one spot and a briefer exposure would not have produced that effect.

(This is not meant to take away from the spectacular image captured by Mr. Haugen’s camera, but rather to clear any confusion on what it actually looked like)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Announcements, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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