Footage of a strange spiral that appeared in the Northern Lights is making the rounds online.
Sky watching enthusiasts got a surprise early Saturday morning when the baby blue spiral, which looked kind of like a galaxy, appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.
Upon first glance, you may think the spiral was a sign of an impending alien invasion or even the opening of a time portal to another dimension. But the real explanation for the impressive galactic sight is rooted in simple science.
Officials say the cause was excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral showed up.
Sometimes rockets have fuel that needs to be jettisoned and when they do that at high altitudes, that fuel turns into ice and can appear as a swirl.
"If it happens to be in the sunlight, when you're in the darkness on the ground, you can see it as a sort of big cloud, and sometimes it's swirly," Don Hampton, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, told the Associated Press.
The AP shared a time-lapse video captured by the Geophysical Institute's all-sky camera, which shows the spiral swirling across the sky. Several photographers also shared snaps of the spiral on social media.
"I can tell you it's not a galaxy," Hampton said. "It's just water vapor reflecting sunlight."
While the spiral is certainly a rare sight, it's not the first time the phenomenon has happened. In January, another spiral was seen swirling through the night sky over Hawaii's Big Island that -- again -- was connected to the launch of a SpaceX rocket, the AP reported.
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