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  At 4:45pm CT on Wednesday, SN8 took to the skies. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

Because the Solar sunk towards the South Texas horizon, a fantastical-looking spaceship rose into the reddening sky.

It was, in a phrase, epic.

Powered by three Raptor rocket engines, SpaceX’s 50-meter-tall Starship car climbed out over the Gulf of Mexico. After a few minutes, one after the other, the Raptor engines blinked off by design. It was not instantly clear how excessive Starship reached, however the craft appeared to come back near the 12.5km ceiling on the flight check.