Cameras capture meteor streaking across southwestern Ontario sky

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Published: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 | 4:04 PM ET
Canadian Press THE CANADIAN PRESS

LONDON, Ont. - Astronomers at the University of Western Ontario have captured footage of a meteor streaking across the night sky, and are now asking residents in a region of southwestern Ontario to help hunt for fragments of what could be a very important find.

A "brilliant fireball" approximately 100 times brighter than a full moon lit up the skies over the west end of Lake Ontario on Sept. 25 at 9:03 p.m.

The university's physics and astronomy department has a network of "all-sky" cameras in southern Ontario that monitor for meteors and seven cameras captured video images of the meteor.

University astronomers are now asking residents around Grimsby, Ont., to help recover one or more possible meteorites as they may provide some fascinating answers.

"This particular meteorite fall, if any are found, is very important because its arrival was so well recorded," Phil McCausland, a postdoctoral fellow at the university's Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, said in a statement.

The images as well as radar and infrasound information can help the astronomers piece together the meteor's orbit before it fell to Earth and determine the energy of the fireball event.

"We can also figure out where it came from and how it got here, which is rare," McCausland said.

"In all of history only about a dozen meteorite falls have that kind of record."

Camera images and other data indicate the meteoroid, originally the size of a tricycle, dropped meteorites that may weigh up to several kilograms in a region south of Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula.

Researchers are interested in hearing from anyone within 10 kilometres of Grimsby who may have seen the fireball or who may find possible meteorite fragments.

In Canada, meteorites belong to the owner of the land on which they are discovered, so any amateur meteorite hunters should get permission of a landowner before searching there, McCausland said.

Meteorites are black on the outside, are usually denser than normal rock and will often attract a fridge magnet because of their metal content. In this case the meteorites may be found in a small hole in the ground due to the force of their fall, McCausland said.

Anyone who recovers a possible meteorite is asked to place it in a clean plastic bag or container and handle it as little as possible.