Canada: Fiery Meteorite Burns Up the Sky

By Lauren Davis
Nov 22 2008

Thursday night, a meteorite fell in Western Canada, burning up as hit the Earth’s atmosphere and creating a brilliant flash over Alberta and Saskatchewan. Witnesses got to experience the brightest fireball the country has seen in over a decade. Fortunately for us non-Canadians, several video cameras captured the meteorite’s luminous fall.

The meteorite appeared in the sky around 5pm MT, and Alan Hildebrand, a planetary scientist said it was probably the largest to land in Canada in 12 years. And the object’s entry into the Earth’s atmosphere created an impressive display:

Hildebrand says the meteor could likely be seen up to 700 kilometres away, into the northern United States. It contained about a tenth of a kiloton of energy when it entered the earth's atmosphere, equal to 100 tons of the chemical explosive TNT.

“It would be something like a billion-watt light bulb.” the rest

Pieces of large meteor may have landed in Saskatchewan