Andy Collins was visiting family in Tweed, Ont. where they were stargazing to catch a glimpse of the Perseids meteor shower Tuesday night.Â
The ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ resident saw at least five meteors or “shooting stars” as the Perseids peaked overnight in the Northern Hemisphere, but what he didn’t expect to see was something even brighter.Â
In the sky and visible to the naked eye, a bow-tie shaped light caught his attention.
and elsewhere online reported witnessing the massive bright light, some speculating it was a comet.Â
Was it a UFO coming for an “alien invasion,” as suggested on social media, or something else? Here’s what we know.
A bow-tie shaped light illuminated the night sky Tuesday. Experts say the light was caused by parts of a rocket entering the atmosphere.
Andy CollinsWhat was the bow-tie shaped light?
The light was actually parts of a rocket that are separated in stages and eventually burnt off when ascending before falling back on earth and entering the planet’s atmosphere, said Denis Vida, research professor in physics and astronomy at Western University. Extra fuel vented from the rocket is illuminated by the sun, making it look like a “multi-tailed object in the sky,” he said.
The type of rocket seen Tuesday night has a big fuel tank that once depleted of fuel, will empty and then crash back down to Earth.
“It’s a mechanism to get rid of some mass that you don’t really need to carry all the way up,” he said.
What we were seeing was the chunk of the rocket that fell off which was burning fuel at it’s tail end, creating a big plume, said Jesse Rogerson, assistant professor focused on astronomy and astrophysics at York University.Â
By contrast, comets hang in the same spot in the sky night after night, whereas this light was slowly moving through the sky, Rogerson said.
A Reddit user caught on video a strange light in the sky in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½’s Leaside neighbourhood Tuesday night. Experts say it’s parts of a rocket entering the atmosphere.
No-Reputation8063 / RedditWhat type of rocket was it?Â
It was an Ariane 6 space craft which was launched from the European Space Agency from French Guiana in South America. The rocket was carrying a weather satellite called METOP-SGA1 which will help observe Earth’s weather and climate from space.
The 65-metre-long rocket has a polar orbit, meaning it launched towards the North Pole, passing southern Ontario on its way over the Atlantic, leaving behind a piece that was seen as the light, said Rogerson.
“Even though the Atlantic is very far away from ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, it’s high enough above the surface of the Earth that we have a good view of it. And because it’s so bright, basically it’s a burning rocket … We are able to see it from so far away,” Rogerson said.
People gather in the Abu Dhabi desert to look the stars on the night of the Perseids meteor shower, early on Aug. 13.
GIUSEPPE CACACE AFP via Getty ImHow was the rocket visible in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½?
Rocket launches are not rare occurrences and Rogerson said most human-made technology that goes to space is quite visible by the naked eye, including satellites. However, not many rockets launch with a polar orbit, which made this one even more visible, he added, because the direction brought it in the way of the populated Eastern Seaboard of North America.
The plume that was created was also “very unique,” he said, which added to the size of the light in the sky.
And because the launch happened after sunset, the sun was still illuminating at a height of a few hundred kilometres, said Vida, lighting up the bow-tie for onlookers.
Although rockets launch somewhere in the world at least once every week, Rogerson says this phenomenon was special.Â
“When you look at it, kind of looks otherworldly,” he said. “It’s definitely not a normal thing to see in the sky.”
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