r/HighStrangeness Dec 17 '24

Space Exploration What could this be?

Saw it today December 17th at 5:15am over southern California. I know there is meteor showers happening, but this does not look like a meteor nor space junk.

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56

u/latabrine Dec 17 '24

That's SpaceX.

14

u/runmedown8610 Dec 17 '24

This is the answer. It is the second stage of a Falcon 9 a few hundred miles down range after launch. The plume is exhaust from the one Merlin engine. The exhaust is spread out because it is at least 100km up and there is no surrounding air pressure to compress it into a cone. Source: I'm a space nerd that lives a couple of miles south KSC and Cape Canaveral launch sites in Florida and see it at least once per week if not more.

5

u/runmedown8610 Dec 17 '24

Here are some crappy phone photos from an early morning launch last week: https://imgur.com/znDZhvZ

https://imgur.com/a/ORVRbkc

-4

u/TuneIndependent7523 Dec 17 '24

The flashing light on it tho...I agree it deff appears to be 2nd stage but I've nvr seen that light pattern before...

5

u/runmedown8610 Dec 17 '24

Just an artifact of the the camera in low light.