[josephwegner]

Curious - I was watching the live stream, and noticed as the ship's rockets were on, there were a bunch of these "floaters" in the view.

https://imgur.com/a/OrZTYxP

I know nearly nothing about rocketry, so ELI5 (or give me a wikipedia link!)... anyone know what those floaters are? Is it some byproduct of the fuel? An artifact of the cameras? An illusion coming through the haze of the burning rocket?

[krunck]

Chunks of ice falling off the sides of the ship where the cryogenic fuel caused atmospheric water to freeze onto it.

[openmarmot]

that is mostly ice. The propellent is super chilled so ice forms on the whole outside of the rocket, and then comes off during the launch and in flight.

You can also see this on the Atlas 5 + starliner launch from yesterday to a lesser degree

[pclmulqdq]

I'm sort of surprised nobody has mentioned this. The ice is all gone at this altitude, and nothing seems to have started falling apart yet.

Those might be satellites reflecting the light from the engines.

[MPSimmons]

Ice is formed by vents on the rocket itself, too.

[ta1243]

Ice of some sort

[verticalscaler]

Heat tiles and or ice falling off