Andorran Engineer Captures Stunning SpaceX Rocket Spiral Over Pyrenees

An Andorran engineering PhD captured a striking spiral of light over Segudet late Thursday night, initially resembling the Northern Lights but identified as exhaust from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch.

Sergi Riba, a local engineer tending his flock of sheep in the parish of Sant Julià de Lòria, photographed the phenomenon around 11:45 p.m. using his iPhone 16 with a two-second maximum exposure. The image shows a vivid blue spiral, which Riba described as "brutal" to witness from such a distance.

Consultations with meteorology experts confirmed it was not an aurora borealis, as weather conditions made that impossible. Instead, it matches the "blue jellyfish" effect—a glowing spiral formed by frozen fuel remnants from rocket upper stages. Riba linked it to the second module of a Starlink Falcon 9 mission, likely launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in recent hours amid heightened global rocket activity.

The display lit up the clear night sky for about 30 seconds before vanishing. "I encountered this strange luminosity in a completely serene sky, and it disappeared after 30 seconds," Riba said.

Such effects occur when residual fuel in a rocket's upper stage freezes and spirals out after separation, reflecting sunlight to create the illusion from afar. Visibility from Andorra underscores the launch's scale, reaching thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic.