In late January 2023, the Subaru Telescope released footage of a bizarre flying whirlpool passing over the sky above Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Though the public was puzzled, scientists soon concluded that the spectacle we witnessed was actually leftover fuel from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which had launched a satellite earlier that day.
But that’s not the end of the story. The oddly symmetrical whirlpool may not be a sign of alien life, but it shows something else — we need to talk about space tourism’s growing environmental impact.
