Meteor Brightens Night Sky Over Canada

[tim_from_pa]

This one's REALLY bright. They said it may not have been more than the size of a grapefruit! But was seen far and wide.Meteor over Canada(Click on the picture in the article for the video)

 

[Christina]

Saw this report seems they are increasing these days but we have had several annual metor showers around so hard to tell if its a true increase.I also heard the Space shuttle saw one said to be the size of a house good thing that one burned up or we could see a replay of the wizard of Oz where the house lands on the wicked witch:)

 

[tim_from_pa]

Maybe a stray Leonid --- this is a humdinger for sure.

 

[HammerStone]

I saw two on back-to-back nights a few days (almost a week) before the Leonid Shower. They weren't quite this big, but I thought it was interesting to see a meteor for two consecutive days like that.

 

[tim_from_pa]

Most meteor showers aren't that spectacular. I've been a fan of the Perseids for many years as a kid, and they'd hype that up to see supposedly hundreds per hour. But after several years trying to view in the dark, cold country not to mention bug bites when it was warmer, I gave up because typically I'd see about 5 per hour. It was better than nothing, but every once in awhile when it is very clear out I'll see a shooting star normally. I've seen enough to know what they look like but I would not exactly call them "fireworks".As for this meteor, this was more on the line of a fireball. That lit up the whole sky, something a typical meteor does not do.Now one thing I'd like to see are the northern lights. In spite of the hoopla that astronomy fans say about that seeing them way down south here, I find that unless one is in perfect darkness (such as the desert) that the city lights in the distance ruins a lot of this stuff. They are much more seeable up north closer to the magnetic poles. Maybe if I lived in Sweden or Alaska they would be far more common to see.

 

[Christina]

Now they are saying this was the biggest meteor to hit earth in a decade Im wondering now if it was the same one the shuttle saw?A University of Calgary investigation of the fireball that lit up the skies of Alberta and Saskatchewan on Thursday has determined that an asteroid fragment weighing approximately 10 tonnes entered the Earth's atmosphere over the prairie provinces.Researcher Alan Hildebrand has outlined a region in western Saskatchewan where chunks of the desk-sized space rock are expected to be found.According to a press release, the fireball first appeared approximately 80 kilometres above and just east of the border city of Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan, and traveled SSE towards the Battle River valley fragmenting spectacularly in a series of explosions. The fireball penetrated the atmosphere at a steep angle of approximately 60 degrees from the horizontal and lasted about five seconds from 17:26:40 to 17:26:45 MST with the largest explosion at 17:26:44.The fireball was recorded on all-sky and security cameras scattered across Saskatchewan and Alberta in addition to being witnessed by tens of thousands of people who saw it streak across the sky, saw its arc-welding blue flash, or heard the subsequent explosions."Firstly, we are enormously appreciative of all the people who have volunteered information about the fireball. The public response to this fireball has been the largest that we have ever had in Canada," said Mr. Hildebrand, Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science and Co-ordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre at the University of Calgary. Mr. Hildebrand said the fireball was like a billion-watt lightbulb shining in the sky, turning night into day with a bluish white light. It illuminated the ground for several hundred kilometers in all directions including as far south as Vauxhall, Alberta."Thanks to everyone's help we are now beginning to delineate the trajectory of the fireball, so that its prefall orbit can be determined. We have also outlined an area where its meteorites may have fallen, although we will have more precise predictions to come," Mr. Hildebrand added.Meanwhile, a University of Alberta researcher plans to use new laser technology to help locate meteorite craters.Dr. Chris Herd, a researcher at the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, says light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology can clear trees and other interference from aerial photographs to reveal hidden craters.Researchers have released a map of the area they believe meterorites will be found."You can just extract all the vegetation in a virtual sense, leaving the bare surface behind, and that exposes the crater in beautiful detail for us," said Mr. Herd.Already used for forestry surveys, LiDAR employs a laser mounted in an aircraft which is beamed at the ground. The technology allows researchers to strip off the images of trees, leaving the crater exposed.Because Thursday's meteor broke up into pieces and scattered over a large area, it's unlikely it created an impact crater, Mr. Herd said.Still, he has tips for those who may come across the remains."The best thing to do, for scientific reasons, is to not handle it directly with hands, and to pick it up with a bag or even a piece of aluminum, store it in that and go from there."TheStarPhoenix.com, with files from Aurangzeb Qureshi, Edmonton Journalhttp://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=992549

 

[Christina]

VIENNA, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Tuesday called for cooperation of the international society on establishing a global near-earth asteroid surveillance network so as to prevent any potential dangers from outer space.According to a report titled "Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response" published here by ASE on Tuesday, scientists have already found almost 6,000 near-earth objects (NEOs) whose orbits intersect with the earth's, in which 500 to 1,000 NEOs have a diameter of over 150 kilometers.Scientists believe that collision of NEOs of this size with the earth may cause global disasters. Therefore, the international society should establish a network of global research, information exchange and prevention under the lead of the United Nations so as to respond to the potential space threat.President of the International Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation (IPTAM) Russell Schweickart pointed out that with the progress and development of the observation technology, detected NEOs will increase, expected to reach one million by 2020. Therefore, the international society needs to take preventative measures. He said that evidence shows that there have been incidents of NEO-earth collision in earth-history.However, experts also emphasized at the same time that the progress and development of the technology make it possible for human beings to forecast and have time to take measures to avoid such disasters.

 

[tim_from_pa]

You can read what was found here:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,458984,00.html