A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, Oct. 13, and left a glowing jellyfish-shaped cloud hanging over Northeast Florida, visible from Orange Park and Fleming Island.

The rocket lifted off at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, News4Jax reported. The plume spread across the pre-dawn sky. Residents across Clay County and beyond looked up.

Orange Park resident Cathy Brown posted on X that the sight was visible from her area.

@CathyBrown380: "Orange Park Fl. It was so cool to watch."

The effect happens when a Falcon 9 launches roughly an hour before sunrise. Sunlight catches exhaust from the rocket's upper stage, mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide, while the sky below is still dark. The glowing trail takes on its distinctive jellyfish shape as it drifts and expands at high altitude.

Geo.tv described the formation as a noctilucent cloud, an ice-crystal structure that forms 50 to 70 miles above Earth's surface.

John Kraus, a Satellite Beach photographer who serves as a special communications assistant to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, called the Oct. 13 display one of the best he has seen. "This was up there among the most stunning I've ever seen and was visible across much of the eastern U.S.," Kraus posted, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Mission cargo

The Falcon 9 carried NASA's CRS-35 mission, the 35th cargo run SpaceX has flown to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services contract. The Dragon spacecraft holds more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and equipment for more than 40 scientific studies, according to Spaceflight Now.

The cargo includes the final pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, known as iROSAs, along with a clamshell housing a failed Canadarm2 joint being returned for analysis. Science experiments aboard study artificial retinas, 3D heart tissue growth and neurodegenerative disease inflammation.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk will monitor the spacecraft's arrival. Dragon is expected to dock at the Harmony module's zenith port at approximately 11 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 15, after a roughly 52-hour flight. The spacecraft will remain attached to the station for about a month.

The Falcon 9's first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral about 7½ minutes after liftoff. It was the booster's eighth flight.