Who knew seeing a rocket fire up close could be so pretty?

On Sunday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared photos and video of the company's Starship Raptor engine firing in its first ground test.

A still shows a kaleidoscope of colours streaming from the engine, although that could be just the camera not quite keeping up with the fire's intensity.

"Green tinge is either camera saturation or a tiny bit of copper from the chamber," Musk added in a tweet.

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Two videos show the full force of the rocket.

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SpaceX has been developing its Raptor engine for years, but the latest iteration has been radically redesigned, according to a tweet from Musk in December.

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Sunday's test firing comes after Musk gave us a glimpse of the Starship's first test vehicle in January, which will be used for suborbital take-off tests from SpaceX's facility in Texas as soon as February.

The Starship, formerly known as the BFR, is slated to replace SpaceX's existing family of vehicles. It will be used for a moon mission carrying Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and a group of artists, which aims to takeoff in 2023.