Meteor Shoots Across GTA Skies

Stock Photo Credit:  Nasa

Sunday March 11th at about 8 PM -People throughout the GTA witnessed a fireball moving across our sky towards the west.  Police switchboards from the Regions of Durham, York and Toronto started to receive the calls of the curious and the concerned.  Was it a plane in distress?  A meteor shower?  A UFO?  Maybe even "space junk" such as a spent rocket booster finally making it back to Earth after years in orbit.

What people likely saw was the blazing trail of a little rock burning up in our upper atmosphere as it traversed the sky.  Usually with such events, it's unlikely that anything actually makes it to the ground.

What's happening here?  In a word -compression.  As the object enters the atmosphere, it compresses the air in front of it.  The air heats up to extremely high temperatures, consuming the unfortunate object in the process.  You can experience something similar -on a smaller scale of course- when you pump up a bicycle tire with a manual air pump.  The pump gets hotter and hotter as you compress the air in the tire to a higher pressure.

Will we find any physical evidence of last night's sky show?  Not likely but if we do, I'll keep you posted.

Comments

[john]

I saw a fireball in the sky at approximately 8pm EDT on Sunday, March 11, 2007, but it was definitely travelling from west to east in the sky, which is contrary to the description I found on your site. This fireball was observed in Avon Lake, Ohio, about 30 degrees above the horizon and approximately 340 degrees azimuth. It was a large and bright white fireball that lasted about 5 seconds and left a white smoke trail for 5+ minutes.

[Carol]

It's been the talk of the town in Kitchener/Waterloo area.

KW Record
http://www.therecord.com/home_page_front_story/home_page_front_story_984482.html

570 news
http://www.570news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20070312_123221_4832

Unfortunately I didn't see it.

[susy]

I observed the fireball in the eastern sky at approximately 8:00 pm. I was traveling southbound in my car when I noticed what I first thought was a shooting star, but realized it was larger than any other shooting star I had ever witnessed and the shiny "star" turned to an orange fireball that appeared to be falling from outer space in the eastern sky in a south west direction then disappeared from my sight. I called 911 because I thought for a moment it might be a small plane, but a police officer observed the same thing and said it was definitely coming from outerspace. The weird thing is this is the only other place I can find any proof that it happened besides the police officer's account and mine. No one else in my small town is talking about it and there has been nothing on the news. Then I finally discover this posting on the web.
Why did so many people in Toronto witness it? It must have hit somewhere in between my state(Michigan) and Toronto, but closer to Toronto. I live on the west side of lower Michigan(Oceana County).

[David Hansen]

Hi. I am searching for some similar info. Like susy above I witnessed a fireball but have heard nothing at all about it. I first thought it was a shooting star, but quickly realized it was brighter and lasted about a minute or two. It appeared to originate near Venus and disappeared from my view near the horizon. From my vantage point in northern CA it appeared in the northern sky on March 29, 2007 at about 5:19 am PST. Is there anyone else that saw this and maybe knows what it may have been?