A large fireball appeared right above the all sky camera network of the University of Western Ontario. The fireball was as bright as the Full Moon with a magnitude of -12, it is expected that it scattered meteorites across the countryside near Bancroft, Ontario.
According to NASA analyses the fireball was caused by a small asteroid with a diameter of about 30 centimetres. The velocity obtained from the camera data was 20.2 km/s. The meteor trajectory was about 130 km long and reached deep into the atmosphere ending at 28.9 km. Therefore it is very likely that meteorites landed on the Earth surface.
Further investigations are coordinated by Prof. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario. A call is made to the public to report any suspicious rock that may be from this event. You may contact Kim Tait of the Royal Ontario Museum at ktait at rom.on.ca.
A very nice video animation about this event made by David Clark can be seen here:
Figure 1 – Images taken by the array of all-sky cameras belonging to the University of Western Ontario that recorded the fireball.
Figure 2 – The fireball trajectory relative to the all-sky cameras of the University of Western Ontario.
Figure 3 – the region where meteorites may have been dropped.
