A swirl of light seen in the sky early Tuesday evening was described by some as a "space jellyfish." But it wasn't a UFO
It was exhaust from a rocket.
The slow-moving pinwheel-shaped light was seen from Connecticut to North Carolina and likely came from the launch of the Ariane 6 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana in South America late Tuesday night, according to meteorologist Mike Wankum at WCVB-TV in Boston.
"What happens is they travel in the upper atmosphere and they release excess fuel. Once that fuel hits the upper atmosphere, it freezes, makes ice crystals up there. And so you get the swirl that happens," Wankum said. "Everything has to be just right to see it. But that's what you're looking at."
The flight was the third commercial Ariane launch. It released the Sentinel-1D, a Copernicus satellite for the European Commission, into orbit. It carries an advanced radar instrument to provide an all-weather day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth's surface.
A similar object appeared in the sky over the Jersey Shore in August after the United Launch Alliance launch of USSF-106, a Vulcan Centaur rocket, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Gene Hirschel, a photographer who took a picture of the August launch, said the Tuesday night light looked the same.
"This is exactly the same rocket, exactly the same position," Hirschel told New Jersey 101.5.