By Tim Binnall
A viewer watching this past weekend's successful SpaceX launch online spotted what he believed to be a mouse crawling along the rocket as it soared into space, but experts say the anomaly probably wasn't really a hitchhiking rodent. The weird moment was noticed by a Pennsylvania man who promptly captured the scene and posted it to his Twitter account. The clip captured the imagination of people on social media, quickly going viral and amassing over a million views.
In the video, a curious object can be seen seemingly scurrying around the base of the rocket as the man declares "I don't care what you say, that is a mouse!" As one might imagine, the presumably impossible presence of the creature on the craft has given rise to conspiracy theories that the entire launch was an elaborate hoax. However, space enthusiasts have a more down-to-Earth explanation for the strange scene. It turns out that the 'mouse' is almost certainly just a piece of frozen liquid oxygen that was vented out of the rocket engine during its journey to the ISS.