{"id":142654,"date":"2025-08-13T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/142654\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:02:09","slug":"spiral-light-over-nh-likely-caused-by-ariane-6-rocket-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/142654\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiral light over NH likely caused by Ariane 6 rocket launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\tMany Granite Staters noticed what appeared to be a cloudy spiral light in the sky Tuesday night.There were sightings in Hooksett, Wilton, Chichester and on Lake Winnipesaukee, among several other New Hampshire communities. It was also seen in other states, including Vermont, Maine, New York, Missouri and Illinois. >> Download the free WMUR app to get updates on the go: Apple | Google Play > Subscribe to WMUR’s YouTube channel <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tMANCHESTER, N.H. \u2014<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Many Granite Staters noticed what appeared to be a cloudy spiral light in the sky Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

There were sightings in Hooksett, Wilton, Chichester and on Lake Winnipesaukee, among several other New Hampshire communities. It was also seen in other states, including Vermont, Maine, New York, Missouri and Illinois. <\/p>\n

>> Download the free WMUR app to get updates on the go:<\/strong> Apple<\/a> | Google Play<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

The sighting came on the same night that the Perseid meteor shower was peaking. But the light was not a meteor.<\/p>\n

The spiral image became visible a couple of hours after Europe\u2019s Ariane 6 rocket took off at 8:37 p.m. ET from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in French Guiana in South America.<\/p>\n

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell said<\/a> the spiral glow was likely caused by the deorbit of the rocket\u2019s upper stage. <\/p>\n

>> Subscribe to WMUR’s YouTube channel<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Granite Staters noticed what appeared to be a cloudy spiral light in the sky Tuesday night.There were…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":142655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[84795,84793,440,84670,3043,22184,8143,2741,9540,991,405,66497,11097,159,2417,84796,4217,783,84798,84794,67,132,68,2742,84797],"class_list":{"0":"post-142654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ariane","9":"tag-cloudy-spiral-light","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-french-guiana","12":"tag-hour","13":"tag-image","14":"tag-light","15":"tag-maine","16":"tag-missouri","17":"tag-new-hampshire","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-night-sky","20":"tag-rocket-launch","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-sighting","23":"tag-sky-tuesday-night","24":"tag-south-america","25":"tag-space","26":"tag-spaceport","27":"tag-spiral-light","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-vermont","32":"tag-wilton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115022066097426887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}