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Colleen Turner, Calgary Herald
Fireball
visible from Edmonton to Calgary
Calgary astronomers
this morning are trying to determine if a fireball that streaked
across the sky Thursday night before exploding sent any meteorite
particles falling towards the Earth.
Several eyewitnesses
reported seeing a bright star-like dot in the sky at about 7:20
p.m. The dot, located in the north sky, headed east for about
four seconds before bursting in a bright fireball.
Don Hladiuk,
an amateur astronomer, captured the fireball on a camera he has
set up in his Sundance den. The camera, which has been in operation
for about a year, has never captured anything quite so spectacular.
"I got
lucky tonight," Hladiuk said. He said the fireball shone
brighter and brighter in the seconds before it burst.
"Most
likely it was a space rock -- bigger than a grain of sand, and
smaller than a bread box.
"We don't
know if any of it hit the Earth or not."
Determining
whether any fragments made it through the atmosphere is the goal
of Alan Hildebrand today.
Hildebrand,
co-ordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre at the
University of Calgary, said he's heard from eyewitnesses in Calgary.
He's now looking forward to hearing from his colleagues in Edmonton,
and is also looking for accounts from people in Red Deer.
"If (any
particles) fell, they would be out in the plains," he said.
Hildebrand
said only one or two such fireballs are visible in Calgary each
year. Other meteors occur, but because they fall toward Earth
during the day or in cloudy conditions they are not visible to
the naked eye.
"Having
a video of it makes it much more interesting . . . And what is
particularly neat is that witnesses were close to the end of the
fireball."
The recording
could help plot the orbit where the meteor came from.
Once it's
discovered where the fireball exploded, it will be easier to determine
if any particles fell to the ground.
"If so,
we can ask farmers to take a look in their fields," said
Hildebrand.
Despite confirmation
the night sky object was a meteor, Lethbridge's CFRV radio station
was reporting it as an alien invasion of Fort Macleod.
"If it
were an invasion by aliens you'd know it," said Calgary Science
Centre astronomer Allan Dyer. "It was in the northeast sky
travelling from north to south."
Dyer said
meteorite pieces falling to Earth can provide information about
the history of the solar system.
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