‘What is it?’ Strange object appears above southern Ontario

Professor Jesse Rogerson says the strange bowtie-shaped light which captured the attention of stargazers was the spent stage of a rocket which launched in Fla.

Stargazers in southern Ontario hoping to catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower Tuesday night were left scratching their heads when a mysterious object appeared in the skies above them.

Pictures and videos of the unusual bow-tie-looking white object flooded social media last night and early Wednesday morning, with many asking: “What is it?”

“Anyone have any idea what this is?” said someone in the Ontario Storm Reports Facebook group. “Anyone recognize this effect?” wrote someone in Kansas. “Anyone else see this in the sky tonight?” asked someone from New Jersey.

Despite jokes that the object may be a harbinger of an “alien invasion,” it turns out there’s probably a much more innocuous explanation.

‘Standard rocket procedure’: astrophysicist

According to Jesse Rogerson, an astrophysicist and assistant professor at York University, the object was likely a “spent stage” of the European Ariane 6 rocket that launched from Kourou, French Guiana, in South America, Tuesday night.

“When you launch a big rocket, like this one, which was going to polar orbit approximately 500-1000 km up, you need a lot of fuel, and you drop your stages as you go. So, as you’ve spent your fuel, you get rid of part of the rocket to make your rocket lighter and easier to push farther into space,” he explained.

“And when it’s falling back to Earth over the Atlantic Ocean, it’s still slightly burning. And so, you see that plume from the fuel, as it’s sort of fizzling out and falling back to Earth, and it looks wild,” Rogerson said.

According to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, another rocket, the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, also launched Tuesday night and was carrying a payload for the U.S. Space Force. However, they told CTV News that its trajectory and mission profile were not responsible for the spiral seen over parts of southern Ontario.

How was I able to see a rocket launch from South America in Ontario?

Rogerson said humans are “terrible” at distinguishing how far away something is in the sky, especially at night. So, although the launch happened thousands of kilometres away from southern Ontario, it looked relatively close to those stargazing Tuesday night.

“The reason you can see it is because it is very high. It’s, you know, 50-ish kilometres up there. But it is also very, very bright… That’s why it looks like it’s not moving very quickly. And it’s just amazing that it’s so far away, but you can see it,” he explained.