Fly Me To The Moon

Amazing Efect Kopp-Etchells V-22
Inter X
The bright halo of light emanating from the tips of the helicopter's rotor blades is caused by sand particles impacting the leading edge of the rotor blades. This constant abrasion erodes the blades  making them unusable in short order. To combat this, the leading edges of the blades are now reinforced with a tough material like nickel or titanium.

The impact knocks loose a tiny chunk of metal as well as heating it. It might it heat it to incandescence and we are seeing the metal particles glowing, or it might heat it to the point of ignition and we are seeing the particles burning. Or it might be a little of both.

Around the 1:20 mark (in the above video), we see a couple Osprey fly over, and you can see a soft glow from the tips of the rotor blades. This is likely from the glow-sticks the Army has attached to the rotor blades, not the Kopp-Etchells effect.

Re the name:

The combat photographer and journalist Michael Yon observed the effect while accompanying U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. When he discovered that the effect had no name he coined the name "Kopp-Etchells Effect" after two soldiers who had died in the war, one American and one British. - Wikipedia

Michael Yon has some photographs.

Via Quora

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Part 2


Thailand Girandola
Another rotor craft heading up. How high does that thing go? It looks like it's going to the moon! It is not actually a rotorcraft. It spins around, but the only thing giving it lift are the rockets.

A Girandola is an outgrowth of the Catherine Wheel, named after Saint Catherine who was to be executed on a breaking wheel, but said wheel shattered at her touch.

Flying Girandolas, like this one, have been around since the 19th Century. If anyone built one earlier, they're keeping mum.

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Part 3


56,000 MPH Space Rock Hits Moon, Explosion Seen | Video
We've flown to the moon just in time to see a cosmic grain of sand smack into the moon. 56,000 MPH is roughly 16 miles per second, about three times faster than a satellite in LEO (low Earth orbit). Similar effect to what we saw with sand hitting the helicopter rotor blades, but no oxygen on the moon means we are only seeing incandescence, not combustion.

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Part 4


ORIGNAL CCTV Footage of Asteroid 2018 LA (ZLAF9B2)

A small asteroid hit Earth on Saturday, June 2nd, exploding in the atmosphere over Botswana before it could reach the ground. The Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona had discovered the space rock only hours earlier as it hurtled toward our planet from inside the orbit of the Moon. Sensors used to monitor rogue nuclear explosions detected the asteroid and estimated its yield near ~500 tons of TNT. - Indy Tom

Plenty of oxygen in our atmosphere, so a little incandescence and a little combustion.

Update September 2020 replaced missing video.

Update February 2023 replaced first video which had gone missing.