Streaking fireball, loud blast may have been meteor
By Joelle Kovach
First posted: Sunday, May 04, 2014 09:08 PM EDT | Updated: Sunday, May 04, 2014 09:29 PM EDT
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. -- Andrew Vreugdenhil was watching Star Wars with his family at about 4:20 p.m. on Sunday when they heard an earth-shattering boom.
“I thought a tree limb fell on our back room,” he said.
When he went outside to check, he only saw his neighbours walking around their yards, too, looking for the source of the noise.
They heard it and others saw it. According to dozens of reports on social media, people across Southern Ontario saw a fireball streaking east across the sky before it apparently exploded or impacted near Peterborough.
Was it a meteor? Tough to say: no experts were calling it one late Sunday.
The American Meteorological Society’s website reported a sighting of a possible meteor over Peterborough on Sunday. By 6 p.m., the society’s website said meteor status was pending.
“Some people said it was a sonic boom - it sounded like that,” said Peter Dawson, an astronomer and professor of physics at Trent University.
He thinks it was “quite likely” a small meteoroid exploding high in the atmosphere.
“Small” in this case means it probably measures anywhere from half-a-metre to a metre, Dawson said, and exploded with the force of 50 tonnes of TNT.
That’s small as compared to the meteor that exploded over Russia in February 2013, he said.
That one blasted out windows and injured 1,000 people in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It exploded with the force of 500,000 tonnes of TNT, Dawson said.
Meteors are “not uncommon,” he added, but most occur over the ocean, where most people can’t see them. Dawson says only 30% of meteors happen overland.
Rodger Forsyth, president of the Peterborough Astronomical Association, said he was at a national telescope and astronomy show in Hamilton, Ont., when the event occurred.
His wife Louise was home in Ennismore, Ont., when it happened and she heard it loud and clear.
“I thought it sounded like a dump truck’s box coming down without its hydraulics - it was a loud bang,” she said.
It amused her that her husband was away shopping for telescopes when a meteor showed up at home. She says it was kind of wasted on her.
“I’m not even the least bit interested in astronomy.”
Streaking fireball, loud blast may have been meteor | Ontario | News | Toronto S
Possible meteor sighting over GTA skies
05/04/2014 05:55 PM Toronto Staff
GTA residents took to social media Sunday after reportedly hearing a loud bang and seeing a flaming object streak across the sky.
A person in Oakville reported seeing the object around 4:15 p.m. Sunday.
Others spotted something as far east as Whitby and as far north as Newmarket.
Peterborough police have received several calls describing some type of explosion and houses shaking in the aftermath.
The American Meteor Society lists 22 reports, ranging from New York and New Jersey to St. Catherines and Caledon, of a fire ball spotted.
Click here for the American Meteor Society website.
Peter Brown, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who studies meteors and meteorites, says the widespread eyewitness reports and images are consistent with a meteor.
There is no official word on what the item was or when, and where, it may have touched down.
Most of the equipment the university has to track meteors was not in operation Sunday afternoon, but a series of microphones the university has in place did detect a shockwave, Brown said.
Based on the data and the eyewitness reports it appears the shockwave occurred in the area of Peterborough and its characteristics allowed for an estimate of the size of the meteor, said Brown.
”The energy is somewhere in the order of a few tens of tons of TNT explosive equivalent,” he said in an interview Sunday night. “That would translate into something on the order of half to one metre in diameter and that’s going to be a mass of ….a few metric tons.”
It’s possible some fragments hit the ground, Brown added.
”This clearly was a pretty massive event, lots of mass, so on that basis alone I think we have a pretty good chance that meteorites would make it to the ground,” he said.
The odds of fragments hitting the ground depend on how fast the meteor was travelling — a relatively slow moving fireball would make it more likely that some meteorites may be found.
“It would not surprise me if meteorites are found,” Brown said.
The annual Eta Aquarids meteor shower is expected to peak this week. There is no official word if Sunday’s sighting is part of that annual shower.
The meteors seen in the Eta Aquarids shower are pieces of Halley’s Comet that separated hundreds of years ago.
Did you see something? Tell us in the comments.
Possible meteor sighting over GTA skies | CityNews
Possible meteor sighting over the GTA
May 4, 2014
GTA residents took to social media Sunday after reportedly hearing a loud bang and seeing a flaming object streak across the sky.
Possible meteor sighting over the GTA | CityNews
Meteor seen in Woodbridge - YouTube
By Joelle Kovach
First posted: Sunday, May 04, 2014 09:08 PM EDT | Updated: Sunday, May 04, 2014 09:29 PM EDT
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. -- Andrew Vreugdenhil was watching Star Wars with his family at about 4:20 p.m. on Sunday when they heard an earth-shattering boom.
“I thought a tree limb fell on our back room,” he said.
When he went outside to check, he only saw his neighbours walking around their yards, too, looking for the source of the noise.
They heard it and others saw it. According to dozens of reports on social media, people across Southern Ontario saw a fireball streaking east across the sky before it apparently exploded or impacted near Peterborough.
Was it a meteor? Tough to say: no experts were calling it one late Sunday.
The American Meteorological Society’s website reported a sighting of a possible meteor over Peterborough on Sunday. By 6 p.m., the society’s website said meteor status was pending.
“Some people said it was a sonic boom - it sounded like that,” said Peter Dawson, an astronomer and professor of physics at Trent University.
He thinks it was “quite likely” a small meteoroid exploding high in the atmosphere.
“Small” in this case means it probably measures anywhere from half-a-metre to a metre, Dawson said, and exploded with the force of 50 tonnes of TNT.
That’s small as compared to the meteor that exploded over Russia in February 2013, he said.
That one blasted out windows and injured 1,000 people in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It exploded with the force of 500,000 tonnes of TNT, Dawson said.
Meteors are “not uncommon,” he added, but most occur over the ocean, where most people can’t see them. Dawson says only 30% of meteors happen overland.
Rodger Forsyth, president of the Peterborough Astronomical Association, said he was at a national telescope and astronomy show in Hamilton, Ont., when the event occurred.
His wife Louise was home in Ennismore, Ont., when it happened and she heard it loud and clear.
“I thought it sounded like a dump truck’s box coming down without its hydraulics - it was a loud bang,” she said.
It amused her that her husband was away shopping for telescopes when a meteor showed up at home. She says it was kind of wasted on her.
“I’m not even the least bit interested in astronomy.”
Streaking fireball, loud blast may have been meteor | Ontario | News | Toronto S
Possible meteor sighting over GTA skies
05/04/2014 05:55 PM Toronto Staff
GTA residents took to social media Sunday after reportedly hearing a loud bang and seeing a flaming object streak across the sky.
A person in Oakville reported seeing the object around 4:15 p.m. Sunday.
Others spotted something as far east as Whitby and as far north as Newmarket.
Peterborough police have received several calls describing some type of explosion and houses shaking in the aftermath.
The American Meteor Society lists 22 reports, ranging from New York and New Jersey to St. Catherines and Caledon, of a fire ball spotted.
Click here for the American Meteor Society website.
Peter Brown, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who studies meteors and meteorites, says the widespread eyewitness reports and images are consistent with a meteor.
There is no official word on what the item was or when, and where, it may have touched down.
Most of the equipment the university has to track meteors was not in operation Sunday afternoon, but a series of microphones the university has in place did detect a shockwave, Brown said.
Based on the data and the eyewitness reports it appears the shockwave occurred in the area of Peterborough and its characteristics allowed for an estimate of the size of the meteor, said Brown.
”The energy is somewhere in the order of a few tens of tons of TNT explosive equivalent,” he said in an interview Sunday night. “That would translate into something on the order of half to one metre in diameter and that’s going to be a mass of ….a few metric tons.”
It’s possible some fragments hit the ground, Brown added.
”This clearly was a pretty massive event, lots of mass, so on that basis alone I think we have a pretty good chance that meteorites would make it to the ground,” he said.
The odds of fragments hitting the ground depend on how fast the meteor was travelling — a relatively slow moving fireball would make it more likely that some meteorites may be found.
“It would not surprise me if meteorites are found,” Brown said.
The annual Eta Aquarids meteor shower is expected to peak this week. There is no official word if Sunday’s sighting is part of that annual shower.
The meteors seen in the Eta Aquarids shower are pieces of Halley’s Comet that separated hundreds of years ago.
Did you see something? Tell us in the comments.
Possible meteor sighting over GTA skies | CityNews
Possible meteor sighting over the GTA
May 4, 2014
GTA residents took to social media Sunday after reportedly hearing a loud bang and seeing a flaming object streak across the sky.
Possible meteor sighting over the GTA | CityNews
Meteor seen in Woodbridge - YouTube
