Meteor lit up the sky early Monday morning (photo courtesy of Graham Knutson)

By Liam Verster

Fragments of Monday morning meteor may have landed in Alberta

Feb 22, 2021 | 3:29 PM

GRANDE PRAIRIE, AB. — A meteor that lit up the sky early Monday morning may have left fragments in Northern Alberta.

The meteor was spotted at around 6:20 a.m., and reports from the public submitted to the American Meteor Society, which tracks and logs reports of meteor and fireball sightings, shows the meteor was seen as far away as Saskatoon, Dawson Creek, Kamloops, Lethbridge, and even in Montana.

The video below of the meteor was captured early Monday morning.

Based on the photos and videos posted on social media, Geoff Robertson, the past president of the Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, says the meteor was likely the size of a desk or refrigerator, and some of it may have survived the fall to earth.

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“Looking at the videos, I saw some flashes as it was coming down, indicating it was probably breaking up. So I would say probably some pieces did eventually make their way down, landing on the ground somewhere,” says Robertson.

The American Meteor Society, using data compiled from the reports, estimates the meteor’s flight path ended just southwest of Athabasca.

Robertson says a team from the University of Alberta will likely triangulate the data and put together a team to go out and search for any pieces that survived.

“The fragments slow down to quite slow, I mean when it hits the earth’s atmosphere these things are going at [between] 11 and 25 kilometres per second, but by the time they hit the ground they’re just falling at terminal velocity, so that’s just less than a couple hundred kilometres per hour.”

He adds that, if anything can be recovered, then they can analyze the fragments to find out more information.

“Whether it’s an iron meteor or a ‘stony’ meteor, and if they get enough data they can actually track back the meteor’s original orbit around the sun and find out where it actually came from.”

Robertson says it’s not guaranteed that any pieces did survive the fall, and there’s also the possibility that any fragments that did survive could have landed in snow, and may not be recovered.

He also says it’s not surprising to see reports coming from all over, and Mike Hankey, the Operations Manager of the American Meteor Society, says it’s not surprising that the flash was seen as far from the site as Grande Prairie.

“You could see (the flash) from up to 600 kilometres away on either side potentially, especially if it’s really bright and based on people’s elevation,” says Hankey.

Hankey adds that anyone who spots a meteor or a fireball can submit reports to the American Meteor Society, which will help narrow down the exact locations that these objects fall, and lead to researchers potentially recovering any surviving fragments.