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Yellowknife, NWT – We are following a story about a reported fireball that exploded in the skies above Yellowknife in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
An image of the exploding meteor was apparently taken by a photographer who was in charge of a viewing tour of the Aurora Borealis.
On lookers claim the night sky turned blue when the fireball erupted.
At this point in time, it`s not believed any damage was caused as a result of the flaming meteor.
March 5, 2014 One of the brightest fireball I’ve seen tonight! Vee Lake, Yellowknife, NWT @AuroraMAX @spectacularNWT pic.twitter.com/2p6705Si0c
— Yuichi Takasaka (@ytakasaka) March 6, 2014
Peter Brown, a physics professor at Western University in London, Ont., viewed the photo of the bright fireball, which he calculated was less than one metre in size.
He told The Canadian Press the fact that there was an explosion meant the object had probably penetrated deep into the atmosphere.
But Brown said that he was almost certain the explosive force was too weak to cause any damage.
He added that the view of an exploding fireball is something that people might only see once a year.
The Western University physics professor noted the meteor that exploded over the skies of Montreal in November 2013 created a thundering boom, but it also shook houses.
The two fireballs over Yellowknife and Montreal paled in comparison to what happened over Chelyabinsk, Russia just over a year ago.
That’s when a meteor estimated to be about 10 tons exploded over the Ural Mountains on Feb. 15, 2013 with the force of an atomic bomb.
The sonic blasts from that fireball shattered windows and injured about 1,000 people.
Agencies/Canadajournal
