Society for Popular Astronomy

Scientists in Canada are hunting for pieces of a meteor that spectacularly lit up the night sky and then exploded into pieces before falling to Earth.

Meteor captured on camera, lighting up the sky

Experts are calling it one of the biggest meteors seen in the country in the last decade.

I'm afraid all I get is an NHS ad and prolonged buffering.

Scientists in Canada are hunting for pieces of a meteor that spectacularly lit up the night sky and then exploded into pieces before falling to Earth.

Hello from Marsden, Saskatchewan. I'm delighted to report that I was on hand today as the media horde descended on a farm just south of Lone Rock (!), SK, where several meteorite fragments were found frozen in a slough. It was quite the scene, with some 35 media people meeting at a fast food restaurant in Lloydminster, with some 20 vehicles joining a convoy for a 20-minute drive to the site. Plus a helicopter!

These meteorites, recovered by Ellen Milley and Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary, have been tentatively identified as ordinary chondrites of Type 5 or 6. Dr. Hildebrand estimates that some thousands of meteorites may have fallen in a strewn field some 3 by 8 km in extent.

Later as Frank and I roamed the area hoping to find a meteorite or two that may have fallen on crown land, we encountered another fellow with an astronomy interest who suggested we go to the Marsden Hotel pub about 20 km to the south. Here we saw an extraordinary site -- a 13 kilogram meteorite which had been recovered by an enterprising rock hound. It was a monster, somewhat larger than a human head. My fellow adventurer Frank Florian quickly confirmed it was indeed a meteorite, and somehow Alan Hildebrand caught wind of it and arrived a couple hours later for a look-see. He too immediately confirmed its extraterrestrial origin. Where it was found and who actually owns the thing remains an open question at this point.

Needless to say, though, it was a huge hit at the pub where the locals were passing it around and examining it carefully. Given it had already been handled rather excessively, there was no point in passing up the opportunity to pick up and hold this object which is simultaneously one of the newest and one of the oldest rocks on Earth. What a tremendous thrill to say the least.

The combined observation of seeing the fireball, observing some of its meteorites _in situ_, and now having touched a large member of the family ranks very high on my Life List.

More adventuring tomorrow; I'll write a more detailed report once we return to Edmonton.

The following first-hand report from the meteorite search area was posted to meteorobs by Bruce McCurdy.

A University of Calgary-organized team recovered more than one hundred meteorites from the November 20 meteorite fall southwest of Lloydminster, Saskatchewan/Alberta, which is expected to set a new Canadian record for the largest recorded meteorite fall.

A bright fireball was widely ob-served across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba during late twilight on November 20, 2008. Interviews of eyewitnesses and crude calibrations of security cameras constrained the fall region and the first search attempt recovered meteorites off the ice of a man made pond in Buzzard Coulee, SK, Nov. 27, 2008.

Buzzard Coulee is a recent (November 20, 2008) fall from Saskatchewan, Canada. Here we discuss the classification of this meteorite and point out some unusual features, including abundant cryptocrystalline chondrules and igneously-textured light-colored inclusions.

The Buzzard Coulee H4 chondrite was collected as fragments from a fireball witnessed at 5:23.46 MST on November 20, 2008 by thousands of residents across the Canadian prairies.

There are now news reports that meteorite fragments have been found.