Fireball seen over Edmonton likely landed hundreds of kilometres away: expert

Doorbell and dash cam footage captured a fireball that fell from the sky early Tuesday morning west of Edmonton.

A fireball captured on a door camera in Edmonton may have landed as far west as Jasper, says an expert.

The fireball lit up the sky west of Edmonton at 6:17 a.m. MT, according to a recording by Edmontonian Bryan Evans’ security camera.

Frank Florian, senior manager of planetarium and space science at Telus World of Science Edmonton, is sure the object was a rock from space because of the speed at which it fell: too fast to be human-made space junk.

“It’s most likely just a little black rock,” Florian told CTV News Edmonton, holding an example in his hand. “Probably it was larger than this, of course, but when these rocks pass through the earth’s atmosphere, it’s like hitting a brick wall. And these rocks will fragment into a lot of smaller pieces that will be scattered across the countryside somewhere.”

They can also be called meteors or bolides.

“Being seen to the west of Edmonton in the sky, low in the sky, it was probably a few hundred kilometres away from Edmonton. So not just over Spruce Grove or Stony Plain,” Florian speculated. “Probably as far away as Jasper, or somewhere between us and Jasper. Not exactly sure. We need a lot more eyewitness reports of what people have seen.”

He encouraged other Albertans to check their security footage and report sightings to the American Meteor Society.

Those who heard the fireball have the best chance of finding its debris, as sound means they were likely within 50 kilometres or so of its landing site, Florian said.

He noted spring fireball season is just starting and there will be more opportunities between now and the end of April to see an event.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Brandon Lynch