Strange object over Norway this morning.

[Urwumpe]

I think it is just in case.

 

[McWgogs]

A whole bunch of good photos here:
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/nordland/1.6902336
One of them definitely shows a rocket contrail.

 

[SiberianTiger]

This video at this page is the best:
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/troms_og_finnmark/1.6902788

And it's looking really, really weird.

 

[cinder1992]

Looks kinda like a singularity drive picking up extra material from the atmosphere. the spiral would be caused by the rotation of the singularity and the plume would be the gamma ray burst from the atmospheric absorption. the spirals dissipation would be almost identical to that as well.

 

[tblaxland]

And it's looking really, really weird.

Sure is, but verifies the spiral pattern. Perhaps the sprial is a glory with a shadow from the exhaust plume projected on it? The plume would be in a spiral pattern due to the helical motion of the rocket and it seems to dissipate towards the end.

Looks kinda like a singularity drive picking up extra material from the atmosphere.

Google fails to find any videos of any actual singularity drive firings for comparison... :dry:

 

[statisticsnerd]

Looks rather photo-shopped.

No kidding.

What I would also like to know is why this story out of "The Sun" has been at the top of Foxnews.com for the past hour. Do they think that we are so braindead that they can pass off tabloid rubbish as news?

"The Sun" is on par with "News of the World" for journalist integrity.

 

[Chub777]

The last video which shows the object without any modifications looks badly like a solid fuel rocket spinning out of control, but it does not have the spirals added to it, the blue cloud in the images should be it's representation.

---------- Post added at 04:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:31 PM ----------



I agree, it smells of image enhancement. But the unedited video looks really like a failed solid rocket motor...

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/trident-2-DNSC8906614_JPG.jpg

I would have to agree.

 

[n72.75]

All right, now we need to simulate it.




Let's get to work people!!!

 

[Ark]

I agree, it smells of image enhancement. But the unedited video looks really like a failed solid rocket motor...

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/trident-2-DNSC8906614_JPG.jpg

I'll bet it took a month to get the smell out of the control room after the technician saw that thing turning around and coming after him. :lol:

 

[garyw]

Much better video -> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8404991.stm

Looks to me like a spinning rocket motor of some kind.

 

[TR1978]

Much better video -> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8404991.stm

Looks to me like a spinning rocket motor of some kind.

Amazing! It reminds me of a galaxy. I would love to have seen that live, but I live way south in the country, unforunately.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Sure is, but verifies the spiral pattern. Perhaps the sprial is a glory with a shadow from the exhaust plume projected on it? The plume would be in a spiral pattern due to the helical motion of the rocket and it seems to dissipate towards the end.

Sounds likely.
See what happened to a self-destructed Trident II missile:

Every piece which had residual unbalanced thrust has begun producing smoke spirals in the air. It looked about the same during the Challenger catastrophe, when the SRB's flew away uncontrolled and were remotely exploded.

Now, if we mentally remove the air and add some altitude and speed to the video above, we can image how the huge spiral could be produced. Perhaps, its size is due to the booster's engine thrusting at full output and spinning at the same time. I guess, any observer closer to the ground track of the missile could see a nice flying saucer throwing beams around.

Unfortunately, the Eastern Kola peninsula is a very sparsely populated area, so there might not be many observers there.

By the way, my yelling on a Russian forum about this sighting produced a sort of stir in our mass media, who are now eager to find out why our MoD neither acknowledges or disproves the fact of the launch. Some leaks indicate that the launch has been performed and was unsuccessful due to the 3rd booster stage's failure.

In the usual Bulava manner, the new failure is not like any of the previous ones. Which creates huge problems for the entire project 955 "Boreas" class submarines, two of which are under construction, one's keel is being laid and another one is already oh her trial trips:

This class was designed to accomodate this damned RSM-56 which is likely to be cancelled if the failures persist.

---------- Post added at 13:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:13 ----------

Ah, an update. The acknowledgment has just appeared.

http://itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=14625844&PageNum=0

Press service of Russian Ministry of Defence reports:

On December 9, a test launch of the ballistic missile Bulava has been performed from off the Dmitry Donskoy submarine missile cruiser in the submerged position at the White Sea's waters. After the ship's returning to the base, the flight telemetry data have been analyzed. The results confirm the first two booster stages performed nominally, while at the third stage a failure occurred resulting in unstable rocket engine's performance.

 

[MAraujo]

Here's a theory:
Given the high latitude, the quickness with which it appeared and disappeared, and the symmetry of the spiral, Im inclined to think its an strange aurora guided by a unique magnetic field interaction. I couldn't characterize what kind of field fluctuation would produce such a pattern, but solar winds can produce some strange vortexes when blown against the earth's magnetosphere (not to mention the diversity of patterns mag fields form on the sun). I haven't done a search yet, but it would be interesting to know what kind of solar activity was being detected at the time of the spiral's appearance. And I couldn't rightly rule out the possibility that is just elaborate light show projected by some eccentric visual artist, however the absence of straight lines (from the projector itself) doesn't support that theory.

 

[garyw]

Very unlikely, the sun was quiet and there was a no fly order issued in that area for the time the spiral appeared.

More information here -> http://www.spaceweather.com/

 

[Urwumpe]

The large white spiral was no glory (which would appear as fuzzy cloud in a long exposure) and the blue cloud was the long exposure of the exhaust. There is also only this single image from Tromso that shows the large regular spiral, while all others only have the exhaust of the spinning rocket.

There is also one reason to doubt that plasma and magnetic fields had been involved, which would have been possible. The plasma would spiral along the magnetic field lines of Earth, and these are not pointing at the observer. Also the spiral would not be so uniform, since the force depends also on direction of the velocity vector of the charged plasma particles relative to the magnetic field. Judging that the rocket was likely fired to the North-East (so it would fly to the typical target region), the possible spiral would actually be perpendicular to the observer - it would appear as a elliptical spiral, not as a perfect circular spiral.

Maybe somebody with more time could simulate the trajectories of charged particles in the rocket exhaust (hot plasma) in the region of the possible trajectory.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The likely launch and observation points at 06:50 UTC Deceber, 9:

 

[Urwumpe]

The likely launch and observation points at 06:50 UTC Deceber, 9:

Can you also include some downrange marks on the trajectory? I mean, like 250 km, 500 km, 750 km and 1000 km down range. Would be helpful estimating where the rocket was relative to Tromso.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Can you also include some downrange marks on the trajectory? I mean, like 250 km, 500 km, 750 km and 1000 km down range. Would be helpful estimating where the rocket was relative to Tromso.

Ok.

Don't ask me about the trajectory shape: I simply don't know. But at least the Bulava was advertised as a missile able of a flat trajectory and shortened boosting time.

The Earth shadow's cut altitude at point D was 23.5 km at 6:50 UTC (no accounting for refraction), so since it was lit up, it should have been somewhere above it.

 

[martins]

Much better video -> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8404991.stm

Looks to me like a spinning rocket motor of some kind.

I am trying to reconcile the video (which looks plausible) with some of the still images, in particular the one linked to from the first post (which looks utterly implausible). Maybe more an 'artist's impression'?

 

[Urwumpe]

The straight line is good enough, since it was the third stage of the rocket that failed according to the Russian officials, I would expect it to be somewhere around 100 km high and approximately 300 km downrange at third stage ignition. Expect some large error bars there, since I don't know the exact data of the Bulava, and can only assume they selected the most optimal stage ratios for getting to maximum range.

So this puts Tromso almost directly west of the missile.

---------- Post added at 01:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 PM ----------

Also, if they self-destructed the missile, this would explain why there are two spirals in the video: One is the nominal exhaust, the other the exhaust of the destroyed case.