[meteorite-list] Meteorite Mystery Search On For Space Rock

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:42:06 2004
Message-ID: <200101291902.LAA16360_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Meteorite mystery search on for space rock
Michael Wood
Calgary Sun
January 27, 2001

Space rock hunters will conduct interviews across central Alberta to
determine if a streaking meteor landed intact, or burned up in the night
sky.

Among the group, with members from the Calgary Science Centre and the
University of Calgary, will be amateur astronomer Dan Hladiuk, who recorded
the streaking ball of light with a video camera set up in his Sundance
living room.

"The video is too low quality to ascertain if any embers are falling off, so
we're going to interview people who saw it, and we'll map its trajectory by
triangulation," said Hladiuk.

Witnesses across Calgary watched for a few seconds as a small, bright light
travelled east across the sky before igniting into a ball of fire about 7:20
p.m. Thursday [Jan 25].

Officials agree it's a meteorite (a fallen meteor), and now they want to
find it.

"It appears to have travelled east of Red Deer, around the Buffalo Lake
area, but that's very rough," said Calgary Science Centre astronomer Allan
Dyer.

"We're looking to talk with people in the Red Deer, Stettler and Ponoka area
to map this out," he said.

Dyer said that if enough people from those areas come forward with
information, a team will dispatch to look for the fallen rock that Hladiuk
described as "about the size of a golf ball or baseball, but no bigger."

"We'll go door to door to nail it down within a square mile or two -- that's
when you can literally start walking through fields to find it," he said.
Received on Mon 29 Jan 2001 02:02:41 PM PST