On the last Wednesday (10), a large red spot was observed in the night sky of Texas. Around 2:14 am (local time), amateur astronomer Abdur Anwar captured the phenomenon moving over Big Bend National Park, which is located on the border of the state with Mexico.
Anwar took the picture with his Google Pixel 6a phone in night mode. He sent the photo to the space weather and space climatology portal Spaceweather.com, questioning if it was an aurora.
The answer is no. In fact, the large red spot that slid across the sky that dawn was caused by SpaceX.
About 90 minutes before the sighting of the phenomenon, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. After the satellites were deployed, the rocket’s second stage executed a motor burn, creating the almost spherical red light.
This is not the first time this has happened. “We are seeing two to five of these spots per month,” reports Stephen Hummel from the McDonald Observatory in Texas, who photographed a spectacular example last November.
The Texas is a great place to observe the phenomenon because, for the Starlink missions launched from Florida, it is where a motor burn safely launches the rocket’s second stage over the South Atlantic. These burns occur about 90 minutes after launch – exactly when Anwar captured the spot.