{"id":81788,"date":"2025-08-14T09:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/81788\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T09:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:01:09","slug":"mystery-object-in-the-sky-not-just-a-rocket-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/81788\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery object in the sky not just a rocket launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -Mystery object that appeared in sky identified. Originally, speculation was that it was from the Cape Canaveral launch. There were actually two rocket launches Tuesday evening. One in Cape Canaveral, but the other in South America. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The following story is from our sister station WFSB in Connecticut. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Turns out, the glowing spiral everyone saw was the result of a European rocket launch thousands of miles away. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">At 8:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday night, Europe\u2019s new Ariane 6 rocket launched from French Guiana, just north of Brazil in South America, carrying the Metop-SGA1 weather satellite. The 8,900-pound spacecraft is designed to improve global weather forecasting and atmospheric monitoring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Nearly 2 hours after launch, the rocket\u2019s upper stage booster, now thousands of miles from where it lifted off, passed high above the sky. As part of its de-orbit sequence, it vented leftover fuel into the cold upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAs that fuel is leaving the aircraft it automatically turns into small crystals. And those crystals are then lighted by the sunlight at those high altitudes. So what happens is the rotation, which is throwing this dumped fuel out, and as it crystalizes you have this beautiful spiral pattern that develops around the spacecraft,\u201d said Dr. Jay White, Director of Science at Talcott Mountain Science Center.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Many spotted this odd spiral in the sky Tuesday night\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ANTSKTGJ5JC2XAIR4D6WCFL3TM.JPG\" width=\"980\" height=\"649\" \/>Many spotted this odd spiral in the sky Tuesday night(Maxuser | WHSV)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This near-perfect spiral was visible for several minutes from Connecticut before dissipating. Astronomers call this a \u201ctwilight phenomenon\u201d or \u201cspace jellyfish\u201d; a rare mix of timing, altitude, and lighting that can turn a routine rocket maneuver into a breathtaking display.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAs human creatures we spend 2\/3 of our time looking at eye level and below and there is something that is just so captivating that takes just a glance up in the night sky, and to be able to capture something like this is just, yeah. So lots of people are tuning into the night sky, that\u2019s fantastic, I love it,\u201d said Dr. White. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Experts like Dr. White say with more launches than ever before, we might just get another surprise show in the years ahead.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"From Bridgewater, Rob Ross\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/P22ATV5WHFA2HKAKFNEU53YPVY.jpeg\" width=\"980\" height=\"1306\" \/>From Bridgewater, Rob Ross(WHSV)<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WHSV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -Mystery object that appeared in sky identified. Originally, speculation was that it was from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193,23770,23774,23779,23775,23771,23773,23778,23776,23772,23777],"class_list":["post-81788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-whsv","tag-whsv-3","tag-whsv-3-news","tag-whsv-news","tag-whsv-tv","tag-whsv-tv-3","tag-whsv-tv-3-news","tag-whsv-tv-news","tag-whsv-tv3","tag-whsv-tv3-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}