Bright light seen over West Virginia Tuesday morning wasn’t a comet

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — People across West Virginia reported seeing a bright light flying across the sky, but it wasn’t a comet or a meteor—it was actually a rocket.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida early Tuesday morning. According to the Associated Press , the rocket is part of the Polaris Dawn mission, which hopes to complete the first-ever private space walk and venture the furthest into space since NASA’s Apollo moonshots, the last of which was in 1972 .

West Virginians from Cheat Lake to Barrackville to West Milford sent WBOY photos and videos of the rocket, which streaked across the sky after its launch at 5:23 a.m. (ET).

People also reported seeing the rocket in neighboring Virginia and Pennsylvania .

The four-person crew will remain in space for five days inside the Crew Dragon space capsule. The spacewalk is scheduled for Sept. 12 at 2:23 a.m. (ET). You can re-watch the full livestream of the launch online here and keep up with the mission on SpaceX’s website .

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