Several Albertans caught a glimpse of a fireball that lit up the morning sky across the province on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Initial observations came from drivers heading to work, with a few calling into 660 NewsRadio at around 6:30 a.m., saying it was pretty amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m on Stoney (Trail) in Calgary, but it was north,\u201d one caller said. \u201cBut it was a big fireball when it came down. It was pretty spectacular to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook page Alberta Aurora Chasers was already on the case, as several people were discussing the fireball in the sky and reported their sightings.<\/p>\n
The fireball was spotted across the province, according to aurora chasers on the page, including Okotoks, Wetaskiwin, Edmonton, Calgary, and even in Wonowon in B.C.<\/p>\n
A few managed to capture videos, sharing the feat as it zipped through the sky.<\/p>\n
Tim Eerkes, who posted his dashcam video while driving in his home city of Edmonton, said he was in awe when he saw it flying through the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was all of a sudden driving, and I see this bright light all of a sudden shooting through the sky, and it just kind of shocked me. Like, wow, what was that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then my second thought was, \u2018Did my dashcam get?\u2019 It was amazing, it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen anything that bright.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has seen meteors before, but nothing this big. This was also his first meteor posting, only having shared aurora sightings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen a couple of other postings on that site, but the reaction is just amazing how people are awed by this,\u201d Eerkes said.<\/p>\n
Eric Donovan, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Calgary, says it\u2019s clearly a meteor, but adds it\u2019s rare to see one in person.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 65 years old, and I spent a lot of time out at night looking at the sky, and I\u2019ve seen \u2014 in person \u2014 I think maybe four or five things like this or brighter in my whole life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very cool event \u2026 whenever I see a video like this, I wish I\u2019d seen it in person.\u201d<\/p>\n
A single fireball report was listed on the American Meteor Society (AMS) site on Monday in the Carstairs area. Some on the group page, including Ryan Thompson, suggest reporting their findings to the AMS to help meteorite hunters and other agencies \u201ctriangulate its fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donovan says researchers at university observatories in Calgary, Edmonton, and Ontario would also be able to use the information to reconstruct the meteor\u2019s trajectory as it enters the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat information then goes into the larger, I would say, scientific warehouse of knowledge that people use, among other things, to study the early solar system and the nature of the early solar system,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, these are really useful events, and they\u2019re beautiful. I\u2019m a little bit envious that I didn\u2019t see it in person because, you know, these are cool to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), fireballs are extremely bright meteors that are \u201cspectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several Albertans caught a glimpse of a fireball that lit up the morning sky across the province on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-466176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466176","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=466176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}