Unexplained Spiral Appears in Alaska's Northern Lights

A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes in the Alaska skies, which was caused by excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral appeared. The appearance of the swirl was caught in time-lapse on the Geophysical Institute’s all-sky camera and shared widely. While not a common sight, such occurrences have been seen about three times.