(meteorobs) Canadian Bolide - April 23, 2005 - Daytime!

[Robert Verish]

<http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/04/26/meteor-mb050426.html?ref=rss>

"Sonic-boom" heard - eyewitnesses sought.

---------------- Attached Article ---------------

Meteor sighting thrills Prairie astronomers

Last Updated Tue, 26 Apr 2005 18:56:22 EDT 

CBC News
WINNIPEG - Stargazing experts have been fielding
dozens of calls from people who spotted a massive
meteor in the daytime sky over western Manitoba on
Saturday. 

Scott Young of the Manitoba Museum's planetarium says
calls are coming in "fast and furious" from people who
saw or heard the meteor, which passed over Riding
Mountain before exploding high over the St. Ambroise
area, north of Portage la Prairie. 

"About half the people only heard it because of the
sonic boom – the explosion – and people were thinking
maybe it's a plane crash or something like that. They
ran outside and would see this cloud of smoke that was
expanding in the upper atmosphere that was visible for
tens of minutes," said Young. 

"The people who saw it described it as a flaming
baseball or a Roman candle with all sorts of flames
and trailing smoke arching across the sky and then
detonating in a final explosion. Sounds like a
spectacular sight." 

Astronomers say this type of spectacle doesn't happen
often. 

"We've been trying to find other references to meteors
that were bright enough to be seen in the daytime, and
there's a handful throughout all recorded history in
the Prairies at all. There was one in Manitoba maybe
20 years ago," said Young. 

"It's a very rare kind of thing. Most of the meteors
that we see at night are just little grains of sand,
and a really bright one might be the size of a marble.
But this was probably the size of a suitcase." 

Young hopes more people will contact him to say where
they were and what direction they were looking when
they saw the space rock hurtling through the sky, so
he can pinpoint the exact details of the meteor's
path. 

"What we need to do is get a bunch of reports, put
them all together and that will help us narrow down
the search area for looking for pieces," he said. 

"Almost certainly this event would have produced at
least one sizeable chunk of meteorite which would have
made it to the ground, and we'd like to find it."