Night Sky

The night sky in Zhezkazgan is not particularly notable. While the city is hardly a metropolis, there's enough light pollution to render the fainter stars invisible. It's better than a big city, worse than an extremely rural region. That is, except for last night.

I had been invited to dinner to a local English teacher's house along with my sitemates Robert and Drew. She and her husband live on the outskirts of town and while everything in Zhezkazgan is walkable, the bus is only about 20 cents. The buses here are rather small and always incredibly crowded so when Bus #3 came the three of us just couldn't fit so we decided to walk it.

As we rounded the corner, we saw a huge light in the sky. My first instinctual impression was that it was the Northern Lights, but from the way the light was shaped it was clear that it was not. Zhezkazgan is roughly the same latitude as Seattle so we aren't that far north. Quickly we realized it was a rocket launching from Baikonur, Russia's space facility located several hundred kilometers away. It was moving fast and its exhaust trail was surprisingly beautiful. White light spread out a great distance on either end of its path, narrowing towards the horizon where it also turned increasingly red. Twice we could see the support booster rockets fall down through the sky.

It was pretty cool.

I probably have cancer.