Timeline for Why some USA launches are visible in Europe
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 7 at 1:17 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | Scott Manley had some coverage of the launch (from 05 min 11 secs). | |
| May 7 at 1:16 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | @CGCampbell: It is to make sense of CallMeTom's comment. | |
| May 6 at 15:01 | comment | added | CGCampbell | @PeterMortensen There is no doubt that I am questioning the related-ness of that link. | |
| May 5 at 7:52 | vote | accept | Ernis | ||
| May 4 at 21:52 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | Related: Can "doubt" sometimes mean "question"? | |
| May 4 at 21:33 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| May 5 at 5:59 | |||||
| May 4 at 19:52 | comment | added | Criggie | This nicely illustrates how space has no country borders, and that space really isn't very far away. | |
| May 4 at 17:56 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | @OscarBravo - launches from Cape Canaveral reach orbit long before they get anywhere near Europe. For some perspective Starlink launches towards the southeast don't even make it past the Virgin Islands by the time the second stage engine cuts off. Even more so for a Vandenberg launch. So the OP was correct in their assumption that a Falcon 9 launch cannot be seen from Europe. However on-orbit engine burns including deorbit burns certainly can be seen there. I suppose a case could be made that an on-orbit engine restart for satellite positioning is part of a launch but that gets into semantics. | |
| May 4 at 14:55 | answer | added | Steve Pemberton | timeline score: 27 | |
| May 4 at 5:59 | comment | added | Oscar Bravo | It sounds like you think rockets get into orbit by going up. They don't; they go up a little bit, then go sideways really fast. A rocket taking off from North America is over Europe in something like 20 minutes - it has gone up a few hundred kilometres, but has gone thousands of kilometres sideways. This article explains it really well - what-if.xkcd.com/58 | |
| May 3 at 23:25 | comment | added | BowlOfRed | Newsweek article of similar phenomenon from earlier launch as it was seen over Norway. newsweek.com/spiral-sky-spacex-rocket-launch-1876397 | |
| May 3 at 20:32 | comment | added | Darth Pseudonym | @Ernis Can you describe exactly what you were seeing? "like a small galaxy" is a bit confusing -- Andromeda looks like a sort of vague smudge to the naked eye, when it's visible at all, but I don't think that's what you meant. | |
| May 3 at 18:57 | history | became hot network question | |||
| May 3 at 17:59 | history | edited | phil1008 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 3 at 13:58 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | It looks like sunset in Lithuania is currently around 9 pm. Yesterday's Vandenberg launch was at 18:36 GMT which would be 9:36 pm EEST. You would have to look at ground tracks of the launch to see if the Falcon 9 second stage or its recently released satellites did in fact pass overhead at the time that you saw whatever it is that you saw. | |
| May 3 at 13:52 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | @CallMeTom - assuming they are referring to what an actual galaxy looks like to the naked eye, that sounds like maybe an on-orbit burn. Whether that's what they saw and whether it was Falcon 9 is unknown. | |
| May 3 at 12:31 | history | edited | Ernis | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited body
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| May 3 at 12:23 | answer | added | Hobbes | timeline score: 10 | |
| May 3 at 12:06 | history | edited | Ernis | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added clarifications: where in europe it was vissible, which side on the sky
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| May 3 at 11:48 | comment | added | CallMeTom | To clarify some doubts, can you provide us with some more information? Roughly where in Europe have you been? (Cape can Vincent will generate another answer than north cape) In which direction have you looked at what time? And maybe describe how you imagine a "small galaxy slowly moving across the sky" looks like? | |
| May 3 at 11:31 | history | edited | Organic Marble |
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| S May 3 at 10:54 | review | First questions | |||
| May 3 at 12:01 | |||||
| S May 3 at 10:54 | history | asked | Ernis | CC BY-SA 4.0 |