Meteor

[Wolfsong]

Anyone living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Eastern BC got quite the show last night around 5:30 mountain time. Astronomers called it a once in a life time event. A huge fireball was seen in the skies... where I live in Saskatoon it lit up the entire sky close to what it is like during the day for about 3 or 4 seconds. All what I saw was the brightness.. not the actual fire ball as I was driving in the other direction.

Today they say that they should know in a few days exactly where the strewn field is but for now they are saying east of Edmonton towards the Saskatchewan boarder.... bout 3 to 4 hours from where I live... they also expect quite a few pieces to be found as even before it hit the 50km above the ground barrier (the spot where meteorites stop glowing) it was breaking up... some are suggesting hundreds of pieces.

How they find the exact location is actually quite interesting... most universities in north america have cameras aimed at different parts of the sky. When something out of the ordinary happens the cameras are triggered to take a pic of that part of the sky. If three different cameras in three dfferent locations record an event they can use the pics to triangulate the trigectory (sp) and thus find the impact site.

I spent the late afternoon today out in that area looking and there are litterally hundreds of cars parked along roads with ppl looking to see what they can find.... so far nothing.....

Amazing is all I can say.

As visable as it was up here I'm sure ppl in some of the states boardering the above provinces seen it as well.

Here is a link to a video of it as viewed in Boise Idaho.. it was actually a lot brighter and lasted a second or 2 longer where I lived... this is cool cause it looks like it is coming right at you. Its a security camera video so not that great... Also keep in mind that if the guesses are right this was shot about 1000 miles or so away from where they think it hit.

It must have been really freaky if you live in the lloydminister area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5lu4mtChW8

[lightdragon]

cool.

:boing:

[CzechWoods]

wow

[Know Your Rights]

And somehow this Alberta girl missed it... darn.

[Wolfsong]

the more I watch this video the more amazed I am it was still this bright 1000 miles away from where they say it impacted.... thats amazing... Like I said above.. it completely lit up the sky where I live just like a sunny day and brighter still.

[Wolfsong]

Here is a page with links to several more vids of it...

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/20/alberta-meteor.html

[aranarose]

the more I watch this video the more amazed I am it was still this bright 1000 miles away from where they say it impacted.... thats amazing... Like I said above.. it completely lit up the sky where I live just like a sunny day and brighter still.

That's what I was thinking! For it to be that bright, that far away, it must have been a pretty decent size. I wonder what size the crater will be.

[Wolfsong]

That's what I was thinking! For it to be that bright, that far away, it must have been a pretty decent size. I wonder what size the crater will be.


So far no crater to speek of... so far the opinion seems to be seeing it was breaking up well above 50km altitude that it will most likely be a strewn field which means no single large crater but a large area with many small impacts. They will probably find many pieces ranging in size around a golf ball and probably some the size of baseballs and maybe the size of basketballs but anything larger than that will probably be unlikely but it sure would be cool if there were some larger specimens... to get a really big crater you really need a larger mass usually composed of Iron which stays intact as it passes through the atmosphere. If you can see it breaking up as it is passing through the atmosphere it usually means that by the time it hits the earth it has broken into many pieces... this is cool from a collecter's point of view as you will be finding pieces for months if not years after. If you consider it was breaking up 50km up in the air and higher the strewn field will be easily 100 miles long and very likely bigger...

It really comes down to the composition of the meteor. If it was Iron they will be finding pieces for some time... if it was rock then they may find only a few main pieces and the rest will have desolved in the air.

A few years back there was a large fireball over northern BC not quite as big as this one... it too broke up in the atmosphere and it was later discovered that it was more than likely a comet or at least had a loose composition like a comet... luckily the fall took place in the winter and a lot of it fell on a lake (Tagish Lake). All they found of that one was tiny fragments ... although a fe pieces the size of a golf ball were found most found was small particles a few mm in size.. the only reason they were able to collect these small pieces is cause they stood out on the ice covered lake and partially melted their way into the ice so collecting was really easy. As mentione above that happened in northern BC and it too was visable where I lived at the time (Seatle)...

I did manage to buy a piece of that one a few years later... here is a pic... it is so small I keep it in a plastic pill capsule as seen in the pic.

83820

Taking a few days off work so some friends and myself can go out and search the area a bit.. its highly unlikely anything will be found but it will be fun at least... gonna wait til after the weekend though as when I drove there yesterday it was nuts with cars an ppl...

I really hope that when they fid it, after the universities have got their samples, some pieces will come up for sale... that is usually the case.

One of the coolest things about meteorite collecters is that they need to get them varified by one of only a few government places in North America. When this happens they always take a piece (quite large if possible) to share with universities and places like NASA and so on for future study. Only after this does it go back to the finder to sell or do whatever with. This way science is always in the loop and always gets samples.... Reputable meteorite dealers will not buy or sell meteorites unless they have been classified by one of these places.

|If they do buy an unclassified one they buy it at a fraction of what it is worth if it is actually a meteorite and then they get it classified themselves. If it turns out to be a meteorite, in many cases and depending on the size, they make a small fortune. I know of one dealer who went to Africa and bought a rock a bit smaller than the size of a basketball. What he paid for it was what he classified as a years wages of a local tribal member in some remote place... we can all guess that he didnt pay a lot for it... after it was classified as a rare meteorte he ended up selling it in pieces... total selling price of all the pieces was in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars.....

[BearDancing]

:whatgivesI didn't see it........................:crazyman:

[yarrow_elfglow]

Thats cool.

[Wolfsong]

they found it.. on a road just east of Lone Rock Saskatchewan.. a lady driving sighted 2 small pieces on a frozen pond... looking closer they found 10 pieces total on the pond.. scientist extrapolated the find and figure there will be thousands of pieces found in the area based on 10 pieces found in one hector. They figure the original mass was about the size of a desk... I was looking too far west :/