It's a bird, a plane... my bad, that was very corny. Anyways, SpaceX, the private California-based aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, is having a good year. On Friday night at around 5:30 p.m., the company launched a rocket, a Falcon 9, from Vandenberg Air Force Base and a lot of people in the Los Angeles area, including Jaden Smith and the much older Tony Hawk were extremely confused.
The weird, extraterrestrial sight was caused by the rocket meeting the cold air. "Water vapor from the aircraft engine exhaust is immediately exposed to very cold temperatures at very high altitudes. The impurities in the exhausts and the very cold temperatures are the perfect recipe for a condensation trail," meteorologist and Forbes contributor Marshall Shepherd explained.
Instead of giving a straight-forward scientific explanation, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk leaned into the alien conspiracy theories with a tweet that jokingly implicated North Korea.
A lot of civilians and celebrity non-scientist took to social media to express their confusion. Check out more footage and pictures from the launch below:
Earlier this week in kind of related news, Musk caused yet another conflagration when he accidentally tweeted out his phone number while apparently trying to DM John Carmack, the chief technology officer of the Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus. Never a dull moment with Musk.
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