They came from completely different parts of the sky. Still, one night apart — nearly down to the minute — two bright meteor fireballs flashed over the Prairie provinces this week.
At 9:48 p.m. Central Time, on the night of Tuesday, March 22, witnessed spied a very bright meteor streaking across the sky.
According to the American Meteor Society, the fireball began around 40 kilometres north of Erwood, SK, just east of Highway 9 in the eastern part of the province. Then, for about 5 seconds, it blazed towards the southwest before winking out at a point just west of Fosston, SK, nearly 200 kilometres away.
This map from the American Meteor Society plots the track of the March 22, 2022 fireball over southeastern Saskatchewan (blue arrow). The coloured splotches indicate the “heat map” of observers, with darker colours representing a higher concentration of witnesses who reported the event. Credit: AMS
Based on witness reports, the event was seen as far away as North Dakota, southern Manitoba, and northern Saskatchewan. Even someone from the village of Empress, on the border between Saskatchewan and Alberta, spotted it.
Storm spotter Nick Schenher captured the fireball on his front door camera from Regina, SK.
Space fireball soars over #yqr earlier this evening at 8:48:58pm. #skstorm #meteor #Meteorites https://t.co/gOeaT4TomH pic.twitter.com/GfhQq5C01I
If that wasn’t amazing enough, the very next night, on Wednesday, March 23, at nearly the same exact time — 9:47 p.m. CT — a second meteor fireball was spotted.
Unlike the one from the previous night, this meteoroid appeared to plunge almost directly downward from space. Based on this, it was entirely unrelated to Tuesday night’s fireball, as the two originated from different points in space.
Alix and Jason Cruickshank caught this one on video from their home in Winnipeg, MB.
Was just looking north in Transcona and saw a shooting star! ☄️ pic.twitter.com/jCmUoQKWRB
Fireballs like this are caused when pieces of rock or ice (meteoroids) plunge into Earth’s atmosphere from space, travelling at speeds of up to hundreds of thousands of kilometres per hour. As it ploughs through the upper atmosphere, a meteoroid compresses the air in its path, which heats the air up so much that it glows. This results in the meteor flash we see in the sky. Given that they occur at altitudes of 50 to 80 km above the ground, a particularly bright flash is typically visible for hundreds of kilometres around.
The meteor flash ends either when the meteoroid is completely vaporized by the heat or when the meteoroid slows enough that it can no longer compress the air to the point of incandescence.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
Seeing Tuesday night’s meteor fireball was rare enough.
“A fireball this big and bright is exceptionally rare for a person to see,” Scott Young, the planetarium astronomer at the Manitoba Museum, told CBC Manitoba on Wednesday.
“If you’re a devoted sky watcher and you spend your whole life, you might be lucky to see two. But I mean, it really is a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Witnessing two fireballs from the same location, on two nights in a row… that has to be exceptionally rare. Right?
Based on the American Meteor Society reports, only one person of the 45 witnesses who saw the Tuesday night fireball — Trevor Bryant, from Brandon, MB — also managed to spot evidence of the Wednesday night event.
Bryant’s webcam captured a great view of the first fireball (embedded below). However, it only managed to record an extremely brief flash of light from the second, as the meteor occurred outside the camera’s point of view.
Watch below: See the March 22 Saskatchewan fireball, as seen from Brandon, MB (at 0:23 of the video)
Witnessing a fireball isn’t just a matter of being outside and looking up.
Fireballs occur randomly, so they can happen at any time (but more on that below). First, it needs to be dark enough to see it, or the fireball has to be bright enough to spot in the light of day. Second, your timing of exactly where you are looking needs to be spot on. These events are here and gone in just a matter of seconds. So, even looking down at your cellphone, turning your head to talk to someone, or moving so a building or trees suddenly block your view of that exact part of the sky could cause you to miss it. Third, you actually need to be able to see the open sky. Clouds in the area could cause even a super-bright fireball to go unnoticed.
So, seeing two meteors like this, almost exactly one night apart, is remarkable.
However, according to Denis Vida, a meteor physics postdoctoral researcher at Western University, the timing of these two may not be all that rare after all.
In an email to The Weather Network, Vida pointed to research written back in 1982 by Canadian meteor astronomers Ian Halliday and Arthur Griffin.
In their paper, Halliday and Griffin gathered what we knew at the time about where meteorites come from — the typical orbits that meteoroids follow around the Sun before they hit Earth. They then used that information to determine when we are most likely to see these meteorite falls, based on the season, the time of day, and our latitude.
Summing up the results, Vida said that “we’ll observe the greatest number of falls during the spring, between sundown and 12 a.m.”
Given that we are just days after the spring equinox, Vida added, we are right at the peak of yearly meteorite fall activity. Plus, when these two fireballs were seen, right around 9:47 p.m. local time, is also right around the peak time of day for this latitude on Earth.
The typical meteor flash in the sky is caused by a micrometeoroid — probably about the size of a grain of sand — which tends to completely vapourize when it hits the atmosphere. Bright fireballs like these two, on the other hand, are produced by larger objects. The larger a meteoroid is, and the slower it travels through the atmosphere, the greater the chance that part of it could survive to reach the ground.
That’s when there’s a possibility of finding meteorites.
According to Vida, simply based on how long the two fireballs last, it’s possible that perhaps around 100 grams of meteorites may have hit the ground from each. However, more analysis would be necessary to know for sure.
Finding meteorites in Canada is often quite difficult, though. Snow on the ground can make this easier. The scorched black exterior typical of meteorites stands out quite well against the white surface. However, in areas with plenty of trees and underbrush, locating them can be a challenge.
If you think you may have found one, here’s what to look for:
Look for the black exterior, the “fusion crust” that develops due to the heat from its passage through the atmosphere
See if it is magnetic. Even an ordinary fridge magnet will tend to stick to a meteorite
Beware of ‘meteor-wrongs’ such as industrial slag, which can have some characteristics of meteorites but are definitely from here on Earth.
Did you see either of these bright fireballs? If so, report what you witnessed to either the American Meteor Society or the International Meteor Organization. Every eyewitness report helps refine the path of these meteors, improve the science of meteors and fireballs, and potentially even help locate meteorites for study.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
