Why Manitobans were able to see a white streak fly across the sky last night

Several Manitobans reported seeing a strange streak of light in the sky Wednesday night. A Manitoba astronomer explains what it was.

Manitobans may have noticed a white streak stretching across the night sky Wednesday evening and wondered what it was.

According to a local astronomer, the long, comet-like display was actually caused by a Chinese rocket that had taken off hours earlier.

“The boosters go up; once they’re sort of done their job, they vent out any extra fuel,” said Scott Young, astronomer at the Manitoba Museum.

“So, all of that fuel, as it comes out of the rocket, basically, instantly crystallizes into these reflective ice crystals. So, the lighting was just right that the sun was catching this.”

Young said space companies have been using a new type of fuel called methalox, which is a combination of methane and liquid oxygen.

The chemical composition is perfect for these kinds of displays, Young said, compared to older fuel sources like hydrogen.

“Hydrogen is just a transparent gas, and while it does get cold, it doesn’t have the same kind of properties.”

He added that this time of year is also the perfect time to see something like this.

“The nights are very short. The sun does not get very low below that northern horizon before it turns around and rises again. So this is a perfect time for darkness down here on the ground, but things up in orbit to be illuminated.”

Jensen Dueck lives in Riverton, Man., and said he saw the streak just before 11:30 p.m. He went outside to take a picture only because he thought it was a Northern Lights display.

“Only when I started seeing pictures online of something that popped up, (did I think) it was something more than just Northern Lights,” said Dueck.

He noted he had never seen something like this before.

“I almost thought it looked kind of angelic at one point.”

The entire display lasted around 10 minutes. Young said he expects that this will become less rare as more companies switch the fuel they are using.

“Every spacecraft has an engine and so then as this methalox fuel gets used more and more, we’ll get to see more and more of these overboard dump kinds of effects,” said Young.