3 ms·
Curious - I was watching the live stream, and noticed as the ship's rockets were on, there were a bunch of these "floaters" in the view. https://imgur.com/a/Or
by josephwegner 2y ago
Curious - I was watching the live stream, and noticed as the ship's rockets were on, there were a bunch of these "floaters" in the view.
https://imgur.com/a/OrZTYxP https://imgur.com/a/OrZTYxP
I know nearly nothing about rocketry, so ELI5 (or give me a wikipedia link!)... anyone know what those floaters are? Is it some byproduct of the fuel? An artifact of the cameras? An illusion coming through the haze of the burning rocket?
- verticalscaler 2y agoHeat tiles and or ice falling off
- ta1243 2y agoIce of some sort
- krunck 2y agoChunks of ice falling off the sides of the ship where the cryogenic fuel caused atmospheric water to freeze onto it.
- openmarmot 2y agothat is mostly ice. The propellent is super chilled so ice forms on the whole outside of the rocket, and then comes off during the launch and in flight. You can also see this on the Atlas 5 + starliner launch from yesterday to a lesser degree
- pclmulqdq 2y agoI'm sort of surprised nobody has mentioned this. The ice is all gone at this altitude, and nothing seems to have started falling apart yet. Those might be satellites reflecting the light from the engines.
- MPSimmons 2y agoIce is formed by vents on the rocket itself, too.