{"id":316648,"date":"2026-02-25T14:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/316648\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T14:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:55:10","slug":"nasa-left-concerned-after-astronaut-described-sight-hed-never-seen-before-during-space-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/316648\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA left concerned after astronaut described sight he\u2019d \u2018never seen before\u2019 during space trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeing Earth from space is a privilege that most of us will never get in our lifetime.<\/p>\n

As we all know, the first lucky people to set foot on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin<\/a> in 1969, and since then, over 290 people have visited NASA’s International<\/a> Space<\/a> Station.<\/p>\n

But, well before the moon landing<\/a>, back in 1962, an astronaut called John Glenn got to fly up to space in a rocket, where he saw something that ‘he’d never seen anything like’ before in his life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Glenn, who diedin 2016 at the age of 95, was one of NASA\u2019s<\/a> original seven Mercury astronauts, and his flight on Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, showed the world that America<\/a> was a serious contender in the space race with the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

His mission was simply to orbit the Earth several times before returning safely; becoming the first American to do so, however, as we say, he saw something that was completely unprecedented.<\/p>\n

During his first orbit, he reported back to NASA that he could see unusual firefly-like glowing objects outside of his window.<\/p>\n

\"AstronautAstronaut John Glenn saw something completely unexpected during his space mission in 1962 (Bettmann\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

As reported by IFL Science<\/a>, Glenn said: “This is Friendship 7. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles that are brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little; they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.”<\/p>\n

He added, “They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window, and they’re all brilliantly lighted. They probably average maybe 7 or 8 feet apart, but I can see them all down below me, also.”<\/p>\n

NASA was concerned that they might impact the spacecraft; however, Glenn confirmed that he couldn’t hear any impact against the capsule.<\/p>\n

He added, “They’re very slow; they’re not going away from me more than maybe 3 or 4 miles per hour. They’re going at the same speed I am, approximately. They’re only very slightly under my speed.<\/p>\n

“They do have a different motion, though, from me, because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way I am looking. There are literally thousands of them.”<\/p>\n

The astronaut explained that the particles appeared just after sunset as he orbited the planet; however, as the sun rose again shortly afterwards, the mysterious objects disappeared.<\/p>\n

\"GlennGlenn saw unusual objects that looked like fireflies out of the spacecraft’s windows (Bettmann\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Glenn said, “This is Friendship 7, broadcasting in the blind. Ah, sunrise has come up behind in the periscope. It was brilliant in the scope, a brilliant red as it approached the horizon and came up; and just as the, as I looked back up out the window, I had literally thousands of small, luminous particles swirling around the capsule and going away from me at maybe 3 to 5 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

“Now that I am out in the bright sun, they seem to have disappeared. It was just as the sun was coming up. I can still see just a few of them now, even though the sun is up some 20\u00b0 above the horizon.”<\/p>\n

While concerning at first, the ‘fireflies’ were later explained by NASA to be tiny ice particles traveling alongside the spacecraft, which were illuminated by the sun at certain angles.<\/p>\n

They were more widely understood after someone else orbited the Earth later that year and saw exactly the same phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Being the first person ever see something is a pretty cool concept, though, and a great story to tell – especially if the mysterious objects in question looked like a magical swarm of fireflies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeing Earth from space is a privilege that most of us will never get in our lifetime. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,326,91,37825,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-316648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-life","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-real-life","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}