This was a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 launch from Cape Canaveral that occurred around 1900 local time on March 4th, 2024. The photo was taken from about 65km from the launch site. The rocket was in the 2nd stage.
Here’s a video of the launch, but you can’t really see the aura since the video is taken from the ship pointing at the rocket nozzle.
so what’s the light reflecting off of?? ice? vapor? something else?
Exhaust products and a small amount of either O2 or unburnt. IIRC SpaceX is a fuel rich cycle, so mostly +unburned fuel.
Think of it kinda like you’re seeing an isolated atmosphere made by the rocket suspended in a place nearly without atmosphere. It is like a cloud of atmosphere in space where there is no atmosphere.
It’s mostly in the sun which is super hot without the filter of an atmosphere and how it buffers temperature. As soon is the particles are below the shadow of the Earth, they get super cold and likely freeze.
The rocket is clearly not at orbital velocity yet and that stuff is going backwards fast, so it will all deorbit fairly quickly.
You’re not seeing turbulent flow quite like what happens on the ground or what is seen in other parts of the exhaust plume because there is not very much pressure in the surrounding region to create the Eddy currents that make the mixing/chaotic flow patterns seen within another medium. I don’t think it is entirely linear flow, but it is much closer to linear flow than what happens in a thick atmosphere.