{"id":66912,"date":"2025-08-13T16:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66912\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T16:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:42:07","slug":"mysterious-object-seen-above-southern-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66912\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious object seen above southern Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Stargazers in southern Ontario hoping to catch a glimpse of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/article\/prolific-meteor-shower-peaks-next-week-but-how-visible-will-it-be-in-toronto\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/article\/prolific-meteor-shower-peaks-next-week-but-how-visible-will-it-be-in-toronto\/\">Perseid meteor shower <\/a>Tuesday night were left scratching their heads when a mysterious object appeared in the skies above them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Pictures and videos of the unusual bow-tie-looking white object flooded social media last night and early Wednesday morning, with many asking: \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAnyone have any idea what this is?\u201d said someone in the Ontario Storm Reports Facebook group. \u201cAnyone recognize this effect?\u201d wrote someone in Kansas. \u201cAnyone else see this in the sky tonight?\u201d asked someone from New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Despite jokes that the object may be a harbinger of an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OntarioTornadoWatch\/posts\/-alien-invasion-not-quite-but-it-sure-had-people-wondering-tonightweve-been-gett\/1171099825050962\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OntarioTornadoWatch\/posts\/-alien-invasion-not-quite-but-it-sure-had-people-wondering-tonightweve-been-gett\/1171099825050962\/\">alien invasion<\/a>,\u201d it turns out there\u2019s probably a much more innocuous explanation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/KEHMILVEEFE73PBBMYAO23F6M4.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/>Ontario space object A mysterious object was spotted above the skies of southern Ontario on Aug. 12, 2025. \u2018Standard rocket procedure\u2019: astrophysicist <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to Jesse Rogerson, an astrophysicist and assistant professor at York University, the object was likely a \u201cspent stage\u201d of the<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.arianespace.com\/with-ariane-6-arianespace-successfully-launches-metop-sga1-satellite?lang=eng\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/newsroom.arianespace.com\/with-ariane-6-arianespace-successfully-launches-metop-sga1-satellite?lang=eng\"> European Ariane 6<\/a> rocket that launched from Kourou, French Guiana, in South America, Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWhen 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\u2019ve spent your fuel, you get rid of part of the rocket to make your rocket lighter and easier to push farther into space,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAnd when it\u2019s falling back to Earth over the Atlantic Ocean, it\u2019s still slightly burning. And so, you see that plume from the fuel, as it\u2019s sort of fizzling out and falling back to Earth, and it looks wild,\u201d Rogerson said.<\/p>\n<p>How was I able to see a rocket launch from South America in Ontario?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Rogerson said humans are \u201cterrible\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe reason you can see it is because it is very high. It\u2019s, you know, 50-ish kilometres up there. But it is also very, very bright\u2026 That\u2019s why it looks like it\u2019s not moving very quickly. And it\u2019s just amazing that it\u2019s so far away, but you can see it,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stargazers in southern Ontario hoping to catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower Tuesday night were left&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[712,49,48,66,306],"class_list":{"0":"post-66912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}