JUPITER SPARKS RESCUE MISSION

JUPITER SPARKS RESCUE MISSION

The planet Jupiter has been held responsible for an offshore rescue mission. According to reports a member of the public spotted the gas filled planet bright in the sky and mistook it for a distress flare. The so called ‘good-Samaritan phoned the local coast guard and raised the alarm.

Within minutes an RAF helicopter and a lifeboat were dispatched off the coast of Tynemouth and were greeted by a number of fishing boats making their way back to the Tyne. The fruitless search continued for an hour before it was surmised that the distress flare was actually the bright sparks of Jupiter

Adrian Don, from Tynemouth RNLI, told the press 'It became apparent that the flares were in fact the planet Jupiter which is very low in the sky at this time of year... There were several stars visible in the sky at the time. But we were able to plot the position of Jupiter and discovered it was where the caller had reported seeing the distress flare...Jupiter gives off a bright red light which could be mistaken for flames. And the fact that it was also partly covered by clouds could have possibly given it the appearance of a flare.'

By my calculations, if it was a distress flare, it would have taken around 142 years to get to the vessel by helicopter and 500 years by lifeboat.

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