Bald Eagle Soars Near NASA/Orbital Sciences Cygnus Launch
Animals seem really into rocket launches lately.
Lately it seems like animals are taking an increased interest in space. A frog photobombed the LADEE launch, and now a bald eagle was spotted getting a bird’s-eye view of Wednesday’s Cygnus launch. See, even eagles like space!
The eagle was spotted by astronomer Christian Ready and photographer Tom Wolf who posted an edited version of an official NASA photo of the launch on his blog. We’ve used the same original image above, but have done our own editing because Wolf’s didn’t have the word “Eagle” written in bright red capital letters.
This wasn’t the first time the bird was seen near the launch site. Wolf noticed it during a visit to the Wallops launch pad before the LADEE launch. He took this photo of the eagle perched on part of the launch pad:
Image via Tom Wolf ©2013 DHCStudio.com
Both this eagle sighting and the recent frog photobomb happened at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, which is conveniently located near the Wallops Island National Wildlife Refuge. They’re not two facilities one might expect have in such proximity, but they seem to be making it work.
Thankfully it looks like the eagle made out better than the frog probably did.
(via Christian Ready, images via NASA and Tom Wolf)
- Really though, it doesn’t look good for the frog from the LADEE launch
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