SpaceX Iridium Launch: Photos From The Launch Pad

On Friday night, Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, launched 10 satellites to orbit for the communications company Iridium. While every SpaceX launch is quite a sight, this one looked a little out of the ordinary and unsuspecting people in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas were stunned by the sight of the rocket and its first stage streaming across the sky.

The launch produced some pretty eerie photos that onlookers took from the ground. Some people thought it was aliens or a UFO while others who knew about the launch ahead of time were sure of what it was. Elon Musk himself jokingly tweeted that it was a "Nuclear alien UFO from North Korea."

But from where the rocket launched from, Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California, the launch looked fairly run of the mill for SpaceX. The rocket and payload went vertical on the launch pad the night before the launch and looked normal and ready to go.

Friday night's launch was the fourth launch SpaceX has completed for Iridium. It's launching 75 new satellites for the company that is working on phasing out an older network of satellites. When the rocket launched, it didn't appear as though it would create such an incredible display in the sky.

Usually, SpaceX makes an attempt to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 rockets it uses for the launches, but for Friday's launch, the company decided not to make a recovery attempt. The rocket lifted off and left a trail of light in its wake around the same time that the sun was setting.

The reason the launch went from looking like a regular trail to the more UFO-looking cloud of light that everyone on the ground saw actually has to do with the conditions of the atmosphere. The condensation and the exhaust emitted from the rocket as well as the smoke from the launch helped to create the condensation trail and cloud.

That air where the condensation trail and cloud ended up can easily change directions or the area it covers with the wind in the sky, and when the sunlight hits it just right, can end up creating quite a spectacle.