'Bizarre' spiral lights up night sky in Canada, U.S.
These sightings may become more common in the years ahead.
Tuesday’s supermoon had some competition for the coolest thing in the sky.
A mysterious-looking spiral moved across the evening sky in parts of Canada and the U.S., grabbing a lot of people’s attention in the process.
Although it looked otherworldly, it was actually man-made: Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket.
The spiral effect is usually only visible in the early evening or at dawn when the sunlight beyond the horizon reflects with a frozen plume of fuel ejected from the rocket.
It launched from French Guiana at 4:02 p.m. EST and was carrying the Sentinel-1D Earth-observation satellite, which is part of the European Union's Copernicus Earth-observation program.
This is the fourth in the Sentinel series of satellites carried to low Earth orbit to capture detailed weather radar imagery of Earth. The previous one in August was also visible over Ontario and Quebec.
In 2024 we collectively launched more than 2,800 objects into space — and that number continues to grow each year.
While Tuesday’s space spiral was unusal to some, it could become an increasingly common sight in our night sky in the years ahead.
With files from April Walker.