Categories: Meteorites

Fragments of Canadian Fireball Found


Fragments of the big meteorite that lit up the Canadian skies across the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan last week have been found, according to a report in CBC online. University of Calgary scientists said they located several meteorite fragments late Thursday afternoon, and they were planning to take reporters to the site Friday. Planetary scientist Dr. Alan Hildebrand and graduate student Ellen Milley believe thousands of meteorite bits from the 10-ton bolide are strewn over a 20-square-kilometre area. The video above of the fireball was taken by a video camera in a police car in Edmonton, Alberta.

The exact site of the findings hasn’t yet been disclosed, but is said to be south of the community of Lloydminster on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Thousands of people saw the meteor streak across the sky and explode on November 20. It was also captured by numerous surveillance video cameras and a few amateur photographers who happened to have a camera in their hands at the right time. Hildebrand called it one of the largest meteors visible in the country in the last decade.

Source: CBC, via Bad Astronomy

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

Starlink on Mars? NASA Is Paying SpaceX to Look Into the Idea

NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its…

13 hours ago

Did You Hear Webb Found Life on an Exoplanet? Not so Fast…

The JWST is astronomers' best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect…

19 hours ago

Vera Rubin’s Primary Mirror Gets its First Reflective Coating

First light for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is quickly approaching and the telescope is…

24 hours ago

Two Stars in a Binary System are Very Different. It's Because There Used to be Three

A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…

2 days ago

The Highest Observatory in the World Comes Online

The history of astronomy and observatories is full of stories about astronomers going higher and…

2 days ago

Is the JWST Now an Interplanetary Meteorologist?

The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope's latest act of outdoing itself, it examined…

2 days ago