This is what Falcon 9’s flight over Poland looked like. “A beautiful, fluffy ball”

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Friday at around 9 p.m. CEST. There were more than a hundred satellites on board, including Poland’s EagleEye, which allows for high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface to be taken. It is the largest and most technically advanced satellite ever built in our country.

Read more: Poland’s largest satellite flies into space

The Falcon 9 launch was not only attractive because of the payload it carried. The rocket’s flight path indicated that it would be visible in the Polish sky. As Karol Wojcicki, an astronomy publisher and author of the blog “With Your Head in the Stars,” points out, the moment of the flyby over Europe coincided with the launch of the satellites. This meant that we saw the Falcon in the night sky surrounded by smaller but still bright dots.

During the next flight, a surprise awaited those watching the sky. Suddenly, the Falcon 9 rocket lit up brightly, taking on the shape of an hourglass. This indicated that the second stage of the rocket had fired its engines in preparation for deorbit. The bright “cloud” accompanying this phenomenon was clearly visible over Poland.