BLINDING FIREBALL: On Friday night Sept. 25th, at approximately 9:03 pm EDT, an asteroid the size of a child's tricycle hit Earth just above Lake Ontario. It was a lucky strike, right in the middle of a network of seven all-sky cameras operated by the University of Western Ontario (UWO). The disintegrating asteroid produced a blinding fireball 100 times brighter than a full Moon. Click on the image to view a movie from the Hamilton, Ontario, station:
The asteroid exploded in flight, producing strong low-frequency sound waves in the atmosphere. Analysis of infrasound records along with video from the seven camera stations lead researchers to believe that fragments of the asteroid could have reached the ground. "This bright fireball was large enough to have dropped meteorites in a region south of Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula, providing masses that may total as much as several kilograms," according to a UWO press release.Researchers at Western Ontario are interested in hearing from anyone within 10 km of Grimsby who may have witnessed or recorded the fireball, seen or heard unusual events at the time, or who may have found possible fragments of the freshly fallen meteorite. Meteorite-hunting tips and more video may be found here. from: SpaceWeather.com, Oct. 12, 2009
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