Question: What causes the “space jellyfish” appearance of SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 Falcon 9 exhaust plumes?
Answer: As the rocket climbs into the thin upper atmosphere, its exhaust expands into a huge, billowing plume, and water vapor in it freezes into ice crystals. The sun, still below the horizon for people on the ground, lights the plume from below, creating the glowing, tentacled “jellyfish” against a dark sky. Launches later in the morning lose the effect as the sky brightens.
