Residents across the province were mesmerised by a glowing orb visible in the night sky after 7pm.
The strange glowing orb was from a rocket called Falcon that was launched from California at about 6pm local time, carrying several satellites.”I asked one of the astronomers on duty in Sutherland who said it was a third stage rocket burn probably from the SpaceX Falcon 9 that was launched on Sunday from California, USA at 6pm,” said Toti resident, Matthew Watson.
The rocket either vented or released fuel still in its tanks and this produced the large halo-like object people saw across the province. The rocket could also have been doing a rocket burn to slow down so it would descend from orbit and later safely burn up in earth’s atmosphere.
The 22-story rocket was built by Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX, and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Station. Privately-owned SpaceX has contracts for more than 50 launches of its new Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets. Ten of those missions are to fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. The other customers are non-US government agencies and commercial satellite operators.
