Ontario Meteor a Rare Event

Written by The Night Sky Guy on October 2, 2009 – 9:45 am -

Update Oct. 2: Latest on last Friday’s Fireball. Sources say that university team that caught meteor fall on film has been out in the field all this week scouring the region for possible meteorites from the event, hence all the silence on the topic. Source also says that the event was so well documented on all eight skycams that the researchers MAY have a good idea where pieces of the meteor that could have survived entry actually landed. Will bring you more ASAP.

Last Friday night saw thousands of people across Ontario bear witness to a meteor’s fiery entry into the atmosphere. Everybody has been dying to learn more about this striking event so here are a few tidbits of info I just got from prof. Margaret Campbell Brown at University of Western Ontario who is part of the school’s Meteor Physics Group which studies events like the one on Friday. The streak of light was indeed a meteor. Size still unknown. It travelled in the general direction of north to south and possibly flew directly over Hamilton, Ontraio. Since it was seen from Ottawa down to Columbus, Ohio the light show was probably happening some 20 to 40 km in altitude. The sound and rumbling heard and felt were sonic booms, which is not unusual and are known to occur a minute or two after seeing a fireball. How rare is an event like this? Campbell says something like this happens maybe every 5 years or so.
While there has not been any really scientifically valuable videos or photos turning up from the public, luckily a set of seven all-sky cameras set up by the University across the region caught the meteor racing across the sky directly on film. From the initial look at the data, Campbell Brown says the meteor may have broke into fragments, and while it is too early to tell if any pieces made it to the ground, it looks as though if any pieces did fall, they might unfortunately have went into Lake Ontario. But this is all preliminary and actual trajectory will have to be further analyzed. The Meteor physics Group will put out a press release and reveal their camera film of the meteor later today sometime soon.
Stay tuned right here for an update later this afternoon. You can also get late-breaking news by following me on Twitter and Facebook, or get a daily email alert sent directly to your inbox.
Update Sept. 28, 9 pm: Still waiting for UWO to release meteor video and analysis. Will keep you posted…

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If you go to this link you can view the video of the meteorite as viewed from University of Western Ontario Located in London Ontario Canada

http://communications.uwo.ca/com/media_newsroom/media_newsroom_stories/western_astronomers_on_hunt_for_meteor_20080307441590/

OMG Wasnt that something ? I would of loved to have seen that. Wonder if we are to believe the findings on this or not. Looked increditable and so big