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GIZMODO had this explanation earlier today......

http://gizmodo.com/5422792/this-is-how-the-mysterious-giant-spiral-happened

This could be another “Staged Failure” by the Russians to cover up their Bulva program and keep it out of arms control treaties. Also, by firing it over Norway, Russia was sending a message to Obama

The video shows it forming from the middle.

Good point. The only way I can save my beautiful theory from ugly facts is to insist that all the spinning happened over a very short time...

Just this moment Glenn Beck showed the video. It doesn't look so well-formed in the video. That's why I think the still image has been doctored, very expertly perhaps but it's so perfect that it just doesn't seem "natural" even for a rocket launch.

Glenn Beck is going to cover it.

Showed a video, took about 10-15 seconds for the spiral to form.

Yet another beautiful theory ruined by ugly facts.

*grumble* *grumble* *grumble* *grumble*

*shrug* The contortions of the smoke trails at Vandeland are due to high altitude winds.

I recall watching one during the boost phase and it formed a perfect cone once it left the atmosphere, so much so that for a moment I thought it was the diverging beam of a spotlight.

No idea what it would have looked like from something close to directly behind.

I read somewhere that this is a timed exposure, dunno if that is accurate, but if it is the longer exposure should have blurred the spiral into a featureless disc.

As for The Comedian’s excellent point about the pinwheel not being distorted by the down range motion of the missile?

Good point. The only way I can save my beautiful theory from ugly facts is to insist that all the spinning happened over a very short time...

It does deform, with the larger (earlier and closer) loops blowing away.

Interesting things do happen.

The best thing about this is posting the dopey pictures. That's fun!

"I like my momentary rip in the space-time continuum theory better"

It does deform, with the larger (earlier and closer) loops blowing away.

I like my momentary rip in the space-time continuum theory better. :-)

Epic Fail.

where gravity didn't deform the perfectly circular spiral swirl

The lack of deformation of the pattern is where I balk too. Growing up in southern california we viewed *lots* of rocket and missile trails from Vandenburg AFB and none ever came even close to maintaining a shape for more than an instant.

If someone wants to propose that this still image was taken at the most incredibly opportune instant then I could maybe buy it after having seen the youtube explanation, etc. But I'm still having trouble accepting this completely. It just seems too perfect over too long a time. But....?

OK, I see what you mean.

That makes sense if the image is basically a time exposure capturing every event from launch to expiration of the booster(s) of all stages.

You're asserting, though, that this crazy-a$$ missle's trajectory, spinning like a top, actually made it into low earth orbit where gravity didn't deform the perfectly circular spiral swirl resulting when the nozzle locked hard to one side and expended the remainder of its fuel, right?

Seems a miracle that it made it into space, considering the deformation of flight path apparent from lift off onward. Also, there is no downward drift to the background spiral which one would expect if the expelling body was still in motion, either following a sub-orbital trajectory, or falling to earth.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

It’s even easier than that. The missle flies in cork screw of the same diameter each rotation.

The “pin wheel” effect is caused by the force perspective of the rocket flying away from the viewer.

(That is, the loops closer look bigger and the loops farther away look smaller.)

Just the Russians doing their part to add to the “Peace Prize” celebrations!

Is the blue thingy pointing to where 0bama was lying in a manger?

Imagine a pinwheel in space.

As it turns it ejects material outward, by the time it has made a full revolution the bit that it first ejected at that angle has travelled away from the center, and it adds a new bit in that direction.
Next revolution, there are two bits away from the center, one further than the other.
Next revolution, three bits evenly spaced and so on.

In the vacuum of space you get a perfect spiral.

To me it looks like the engine was a little off center, and the missile travelled a corkscrew path trying to correct, ending when the nozzle jammed hard over.

YMMV

Lol, exactly.

I'm shocked, shocked to find that it wasn't space monsters.

Yeah. I’m still skeptical.

Not convinced by any of fhe explanations so far.

"Can someone explain the physics to me"

Sure. It's sorta like animal magnetism

Uh, um...

Can someone explain the physics to me (citing an equation or two would be fine) of how that background spiral vortex was created by the failure of the missle whose perpendicular cork screw "contrail" is presumably but inexplicably illuminated in blue?

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

Truth on FR first!

It appears you were correct.

"This is a good visual model and description of what actually happened."

110,000+ views on youtube - zero comments.

That works for me;)

thx

Ummm..., I would still check it out, Scully and Mulder... :-)

This is a good visual model and description of what actually happened.

BEE ESS

What I thought was funny was the line in the articles that stated that the Russians denied shooting off a missile, so people couldn't figure out what it was.

Explains perfectly why people are continually surprised over Obama. It's like Madelaine Albright out in front of the Clinton White House saying, “The president has assured me that the sexual allegations are all false”.

There's a line in the old Cary Grant film Charade referring to a senior diplomat that goes, “Well, if I bluffed the old man out of the pot with a pair of deuces, what are the Russians doing to him?”

If one were trying to spread a biological agent one could scarcely do a better job of evenly distributing it than that spiral.

Just sayin'...

Crazy Ruskies, blowing up rockets for light shows. Just use lasers like we do!

It were mahty purty;)

So, the blue-green light is a laser tracker iliuminated in the debris trail?